A second half capitulation saw the Missioners fall back into the drop zone this afternoon as Braintree took revenge for the Hayes victory in Essex earlier this season.

Manager Kevin Hill was forced to throw 18 year old John Munday into the starting line-up in place of the sick Jack Haverson while Kieran Knight and Stafforde Palmer continued as the front two despite drawing a blank at Havant the previous game.

The game started in fairly even fashion, with Will Hendry seeing a volley blocked inside the area for Hayes and a Bertie Brayley snapshot at the other end was gathered by Kevin Davies at the second attempt. Minutes later Davies was again alert to keep the scoresheet blank, Eugene Ofori played the ball to the on-coming Robbie Martin but a poor first touch gave the keeper chance to depart his line and block the effort away.

The visitors continued to push forwards, a David Lee free-kick saw the defence move away from the Iron's skipper Bradley Quinton whose flick header had to be turned over the bar by Davies. From the resultant corner the ball again found an unmarked Braintree player, this time Billy Burgess drawing another save from Davies.

Surviving this little onslaught woke the Missioners and it was only a matter of minutes before we broke the deadlock. Liam Feeney had twice gone close before he chased a ball into the corner of the pitch, played the ball back to Gilbert Nuako who fired it to Palmer in the area, the striker controlling the ball and hitting a left foot shot towards goal that took a deflection off a defender leaving keeper Nick Morgan stranded.

Just a couple of minutes later the lead could have been extended, Palmer fed strike partner Kieran Knight, his shot was rather wayward but fell to Feeney but he could not keep his volley beneath the crossbar.

Having worked so hard to obtain the lead, it is soul destroying to have witnessed the way we started the second half. Fiery Iron manager George Borg sent his players back to the field after just five minutes and no doubt with his tongue lashing ringing in their ears they duly obliged. Just 90 seconds had been played and the equaliser arrived, a right side corner picking out Eugene Ofori who rose unchallenged to head past Davies and the defender on the line.

With the home side still not at the races, it was hardly surprising that we soon conceded again and yet again! On the hour mark Ofori netted his second from close range after Martin had beaten off Jomo Faal-Thomas on the left before squaring to the striker and just nine minutes later a dreadful attempt to clear by acting skipper Adam Logie saw a complete air shot that left Quinton a run into the area where referee Bentley adjudged Nuako had tripped him and awarded a penalty, Quinton duly converted.

Two Minutes later the Missioners gave themselves a glimmer of hope thanks to powerhouse Will Hendry, the midfielder battled his way forwards holding off challenge after challenge before feeding substitute Michael Bartley in the area and he held off a challenge before firing across Morgan into the far corner.

Sadly for the Missioners there was to be little in the way of goalmouth incident for the remainder of the game and George will go home happy with three points in his back pocket while I'm sure Kevin will be wondering how the hell we stop this slide into oblivion?



Report by Kevin Watts. Photos by Ray Peploe.