BRAINTREE Town goalkeeper Nathan McDonald is pleased that the Iron’s accumulation of clean sheets is continuing its upward trend.

There were just four games in all competitions up to start of November where the Iron’s defensive unit shut out their opponents, however, there have been three games - against Poole City, Bognor Regis Town and Cray Wanderers - in November where McDonald hasn’t had to pick the ball out of his net.

And he feels that shows they are heading in the right direction.

The latest shutout came in the 3-0 FA Trophy win against Cray Wanderers last weekend and, while he was happy to see the team progress, the clean sheet was the cherry on top of the cake for McDonald.

The Brainree keeper said: “After the defeat we had against Weston-Super-Mare the week before, it has been good to bounce back and we continued that with the Trophy win. I felt we should have won against Truro in the week, so it was good to get back to winning ways like we did.

“We expected Cray Wanderers to come at us as they did in the first half as they were 16 games unbeaten and we had been told what they would do as we’d had them watched.

“But we just kept at it and we knew we’d come stronger in the second half and it turned out that way.

“It’s nice to keep a clean sheet as well as I haven’t had that many at the start of the season.

“It’s picking up now, though, and that’s three that we’ve had in November.

“It’s always nice to go home with a clean sheet.”