AFC Telford United must surely be in no rush to go back to the Impact Arena.

In three visits during the calendar year, they have conceded 11 goals and lost all three games.

At least back in May, they were still celebrating a 5-4 aggregate victory as they went through to the play-off final despite losing 4-3 at Alfreton.

• Pictures — click here

The Derbyshire side have not forgotten that incredible contest and exacted their revenge in free-scoring fashion on Saturday.

For Telford, it was very much a day – or a second half, at least – to forget, with all four goals down to uncharacteristic defensive errors after the break.

Creating chances remains a problem as well, as proved by their solitary strike on target during the entire 90 minutes.

But to see their usually ultra-reliable defenders looking lost and bewildered was a worrying sight.

“I’ve got no excuses,” said assistant manager Larry Chambers. “I thought for 90 minutes they were the better side and they thoroughly deserved to win.

“It wasn’t a great game and they always looked the side more likely to score, but we thought if we could keep them quiet for 10 minutes in the second half we might get something out of it.

“Instead, we quickly conceded a silly goal and it was individual defensive errors that cost us.

“If you look at the last three goals you’ll see they were all quite similar in that they got four, five, six touches in the box and we never got a tackle in.

“From our point of view, they were poor goals to concede.”

Telford had given debuts to three new faces on Saturday, the trio brought in to try and freshen up a side that had been so poor in the 2-1 home defeat to Northwich Victoria last Tuesday.

Gavin Hurren provided much-needed bite in midfield, while there was a new-look strikeforce in the shape of Iyseden Christie and Stuart Nicholson.

The first half proved to be an uninspiring affair, Telford restricted to long-range efforts that never troubled Alfreton keeper Craig Dootson.

At the other end, Richard Pell had a header cleared off the line by Jon Adams, while Liam Hearn was denied by a decent save from Ryan Young.

The hosts had enjoyed the better of it, but Telford were hanging on – and that is more than they were to manage after the break.

The die was cast just four minutes after the re-start as Shane Killock fluffed an attempted clearance and Hearn pounced to beat Young at his near post.

Goal No 2 saw Anthony Howell waltz past strangely weak challenges from skipper Stuart Whitehead and Gavin Cowan before setting up Paul Clayton to score.

From there, Telford looked beaten – though to concede two more goals in the last five minutes was still a shock to the system.

Both were scored by Andy Todd, the first when he was afforded too much space in the box and the second when he accelerated with ease past a tired Cowan who seemed to have wilted in the oppressive heat of a sunny September afternoon.

The best the Bucks could manage was a Sean Newton free-kick which was at least on target, though of no difficulty to Dootson.

They had started the game lining up in a 3-5-2 formation but switched to 4-4-2 following a double substitution just past the hour.

But that could not shake them into life either, leaving Christie to reflect on a worrying loss of confidence among his new team-mates.

“It’s disappointing,” he said. “I thought we competed well in the first half and didn’t look in that much trouble.

“Even at the start of the second half until they scored, I felt it could have gone either way.

“Once they scored, all the negativity possibly came back into the team so it was frustrating to go on and lose by four.”

By Chris Hudson