Greville Waterman bears the bad news from a poor performance.

Brentford gave a rousing second half performance to be proud of, keeping Bristol Rovers on the back foot and deserving more than Charlie MacDonald's fabulous swivel, turn and volley into the roof of the net from 25 yards.

The trouble was the nightmare first half defensive performance which saw the Bees trailing 3-0 at the break after conceding three truly awful goals.

Twice the defence misjudged straight balls down the centre, both times punished easily by debutant Chris Dickson and then Cleveland Taylor watched his fullback Lescott play a one-two, failed to track back and the ball was placed into the corner for the killer third goal.

An unchanged Bees rarely threatened in the first half. Phillips tried the spectacular from a Hunt throw and side-volleyed wide when a more prosaic finish might have scored and MacDonald missed narrowly twice, but the midfield lacked any threat, Weston was anonymous and the lack of a targetman was obvious.

Hunt and Weston were replaced before the break by Saunders and Bean - evidence of the Manager's anger at the poor performace.

Bristol Rovers were solid, big, organised and hoofed the ball down the middle looking for the two pacy strikers Kuffour and Dickson to threaten on the break but they must have been amazed at the success of their game plan and the gifts they were granted.

Referee Hooper also didn't help, failing to dismiss another ex-Bee, keeper Andersen for ploughing into the speedy Kabba just outside the box and he escaped with a yellow card.

Not too many positives today. Charlie looked sharp, Bean made a solid return as a substitute and Taylor ran at the defence and threatened from time to time. Apart from that - very little.

Hopefully Dickson is not too far from a return as he is sorely missed at both ends of the pitch and Charlie needs better support up front.

Today was an eye-opener, the first time that the Bees have underperformed totally all season.

Chester, Dagenham and now Bristol Rovers - three poor performances only in almost 12 months but today in the first half it was really bad and there are some lessons to be learned over the next few days.