Having only played one competitive game since the turn of the year, Justin Gardner’s side looked rusty from the outset.

But after falling behind to an early goal from Tony Martin, the Millers showed great character to drag themselves back into the match.

And after Teddy Nesbitt had headed the Millers back level when the linesman adjudged his flick on to be over the line, Asante wrapped up the points late on putting the finishing touch on Lee Weemes’ pull back.

It was a third league win in a row now for Gardner’s men and his joy was clear to see at the final whistle as the Millers boss celebrated.

Having not played a league game since December 28th, question marks surrounded Justin Gardner’s side over whether they could continue their upturn in fortunes that begun before the New Year.

Brentwood on the other hand had managed to play four league games since Aveley’s last league outing against Chatham Town and their superior match sharpness showed early on.

And with former assistant boss Adam Flanagan in the dug-out of the opposition if there was any manager in the league who knew how to undo the Millers it was him.

Flanagan’s side that had the best chance of the opening exchanges after Martyn Stokes headed towards goal only for his effort to be blocked and hacked away inside the first 10 minutes.

Five minutes later though and the visitors were in front, although largely thanks to a helping hand from Jay Leader.

The centre half tried heading the ball back towards Jack Giddens in the Aveley goal, but didn’t get enough on it only for the ball to run perfectly into the path of Tony Martin who dinked over the onrushing Giddens to put Brentwood 1-0 up.

The goal rocked the Millers and put them right on the back foot, and they were inches away from going two down when Alex Akrofi curled one just wide of Giddens’ left hand post.

With the wind whipping up the Millers were finding it difficult to get out of their own half, with Giddens’ kicks either failing to reach the half way line or swerving out of play.

With that in mind it looked ambitious when Petrit Elbi lined up a free kick from distance against the wind.

But the striker generated enough power to cause Dean Neil problems as he saved with his legs, with Kyle Asante unable to convert the follow up for Aveley’s best chance of the half by far.

After being given the riot act by Gardner at half time it was now the Millers’ turn to attack with the wind and Asante will feel he should have done better with a poked effort towards goal early on.

Aveley were beginning to look threatening as the half wore on, and Louis Baucott was very fortunate not to be receiving his marching orders just before the hour when he took Elbi out on the edge of the area when he looked to be clean through.

The referee only saw fit to show a yellow, with Elbi dusting himself off to drill the free kick low and hard, but just wide of Neil’s right hand post.

As we entered the final quarter of the game, Aveley were finding it difficult to carve out chances, but almost got a massive stroke of luck thanks to the conditions.

Cutting inside from the left, Aryan Tajbakhsh swung in a right foot cross that was intended for the far post, got caught in the wind and had to be tipped over by Neil.

Tajbakhsh then sent in the resulting corner which was attacked by a swarm of bodies at the near post and sent towards goal by Teddy Nesbitt. The ball was cleared but the linesman on the far side adjudged the ball to have crossed the line and we were back level.

The Millers were now in the ascendency and another corner from the left was again flicked towards goal, this time by Leader, but this time it was cleared before crossing the line.

Some crunching tackles were starting to fly in from both sides and they both went in search of the goal that almost certainly would have won their side all three points.

And Gardner’s frustration from the side-lines was palpable as he screamed that he wanted more from his players as this match edged towards a close.

With 90 minutes about to expire, more is exactly what he got from one of his second half substitutes as Lee Weemes capitalised on some slack defending to help Aveley steal the points.

A clipped ball over the top was being shepherded out by the Brentwood defence only for Weemes to nip behind them to keep the ball in play. The striker then squeezed his way between the two defenders to lay off the onrushing Asante who scuffed his effort past Neil and in.

It wasn’t the cleanest of strikes Asante will ever hit, but it didn’t matter as Aveley saw out injury time to notch up their third straight league win of the season despite not being at their very best.

“It wasn’t pretty” was how Justin Gardner summed up the match afterwards.

“We haven’t played a league game for five weeks and I don’t think that helped.”

“But we dug in deep and showed character, and we’ve turned it around from 1-0 to win 2-1 so I’m happy.”

Aveley: Jack Giddens, Mathias Bakare (Nathan Koranteng 59’), Sam Holloway, Jay Leader, Joseph Elull, Adetayo Osifuwa (Lee Weemes 68’), Aryan Tajbakhsh, Brian Okwera, Petrit Elbi (George Whitelock 78’), Kyle Asante, Teddy Nesbitt