Saffron Walden Town will look to bounce back from a heavy home defeat when they welcome Newmarket to Catons Lane this weekend.

The Bloods took the lead against Walsham-le-Willows, but then conceded four second-half goals to fall to a 4-1 loss in a game to forget in front of a crowd of 210.

The first chance for the hosts came after five minutes when James Crane forced a save out from Tom Coombe.

Coombe was put to the test again five minutes later to deny Julian Simon-Parsons’ long-range effort, while most of Walsham’s chances in the first half came from long range efforts on the edge of Neil O’Sullivan’s box.

Midway through the half, Bloods striker Charlie Portway found himself on the end of a perfectly weighted through ball from the alert Crane, but his shot was tipped wide by Coombe.

Perhaps the best chance came 10 minutes before half time as Joe Maybanks dribbled down the right and put a low, driven cross into the goalmouth, missing Portway but reaching Crane who could put it straight at the keeper and saw the rebound go off him and behind for a goal kick.

The game started to get a bit heated towards the end of the half when Walsham captain Craig Nurse slid into Simon-Parsons having already been booked, but escaped a second yellow card.

Moments later, Crane was brought down near the corner flag by a sliding challenge from Coombe, who was booked.

The first goal came in the 55th minute when a Walden corner led to a scramble which saw the ball poked home by Connor Molloy.

However, Walsham levelled soon after when Craig Nurse’s free kick deceived O’Sullivan and they took the lead on 71 minutes with a shot into the bottom corner.

With five minutes to go Walden’s problems grew after a mistake at the back led to a third goal for Walsham, whose attacker was able to latch on to a ball over on the left of the box and tucked it away calmly.

And Walsham put Walden out of their misery when an attacker bombed away down the right wing, dribbled his way across the byline and placed a shot into the bottom left corner.

Saffron Walden: O’Sullivan, Bell, Ledwith, Molloy, Fleming, Moody, Simon-Parsons, Murphy, Maybanks, Portway, Crane. Subs: Skeggs (77), Gray (84), Grindrod, Lakin (58), Strong.