THE fact that his side picked up no injuries was just about the only positive that new Ipswich Town manager Paul Hurst could take from his team’s visit to Braintree Town.

The Championship side were well beaten by their Vanarama National League hosts as the Iron won 2-0 thanks to an impressive team performance capped by two goals from Aryan Tajbakhsh.

In truth, it could easily have been a more emphatic win for Braintree as they hit the bar and only a couple of good saves by goalkeeper Dean Gerken denied them at set pieces late on.

And in Hurst’s first pre-season game after taking over as Blues boss, he admitted that what he had seen was not what he had wanted from his opening fixture.

He said: “We got through it without any injuries and that was near enough one of the only positives to take from it.

“It wasn’t what I was looking for.

“Admittedly, it was a very warm day on a difficult surface but Braintree coped with us and did things a lot better than what we did.

“It took for half-time for me to get into the players a little bit and we started to play a bit better in the second half.

“I’m not saying it was fantastic but it was better until we made the substitutions and naturally, the game always changes then with a lot of the younger players out there.

“But, in the first half, we’re looking for a lot better than what we saw.

“The principles in terms of basics that the players know we’re after, they weren’t delivered and certainly, moving forward, we won’t accept.”