Town demolished at Braintree

Braintree were relegated from the National League at the end of last season and are making a determined effort to get back into the top flight, their 5-0 win improving their chances and seeing them climb into second place in the league, only a point behind Truro City.

The Iron are a strong powerful side, and after we had matched them for the first half-hour, they out-muscled us and thoroughly deserved their win, our biggest defeat since we were beaten at St.Albans by a similar score last November. We came back well from that defeat but with high-flying Billericay and 5th placed East Thurrock to visit Bulpit Lane in the next two weeks, we badly need a return to fitness for our injured players.

There was little between the two sides during the opening spell, but Nathan McDonald raced off his line to stop Stefan Brown and then pulled off a great save to keep out a Gareth Thomas strike from a Louie Soares corner. The same player headed wide in another attack, and when his shot was deflected off a defender, McDonald pulled off another good save.

Everything changed in the 31st minute when Roman Michael-Percil beat Lewis Ward with a terrific shot and when he made it 2-0 only 4 minutes later there was no way back and it was a case of damage-limitation thereafter.

Phil Roberts made it 3-0 just before half-time when he lobbed the ball over the advancing Ward and the same player scored again midway through the second half. The introduction of all three subs
made little difference and the final blow came only 4 minutes from time when Ward pulled off a good save, but only deflected the ball to Ben Wyatt who slid it into the empty net to end a miserable day for us all.

Team; Lewis Ward, Rhys Tyler(C), Paul Stonehouse,,Ian Herring(Scott Rees), Harvey Read, Gareth Thomas, James Clark(Jordan Simpson), Callum Willmoth, Stefan Brown, Nicholas Bignall(Jamal Lawrence), Louie Soares.
Subs;Jon Boardman, Marcus Beauchamp.