Alan Devonshire admitted that seeing two points dropped to a late goal was disappointing as his Braintree Town team were held to a 3-3 draw at Lincoln City in the Blue Square Bet Premier.

Having come back from an early opener by the hosts with a goal by Jai Reason and then led twice through Reason’s second and one from Watford loanee Britt Assombalonga, the Iron were pegged back by Louis Almond’s stoppage-time leveller at Sincil Bank.

Manager Devonshire said: “There’s always excitement when Braintree Town play.

“To be honest, we would have taken a point if you’d offered it to us before the game, but to only draw having been leading twice, you would be hoping to get a win.

“However, it was our first game for 17 days and there were some good perfromances and some poor performances out there.

“I was pleased overall with the way they responded to being out of action for so long, though.

“We aren’t a full-time team and I was a bit worried how we would react.

“But we have tried to keep them working hard in training by running on the snow even though we couldn’t get any ball work done for the last two weeks.”

He added: “We were hugley disappointed, but it’s another point and it means we have only lost one since the start of January and that was at the leaders Fleetwood.

“We had a good talk during the break in football because of the bad weather and we said we didn’t want the season to peter out.

“It’s been such a good season and we want to end it on a high.”

There was, however, disappointment that his team couldn’t hold on to all three points after taking the lead late in the game.

It is the fifth time this season that Braintree have seen points dropped because of goals in the last ten minutes of games.

Devonshire said: “Teams throw players forward if they are chasing the game and it’s not just for us.

“Remember how Bayern Munich saw two goals go in against Manchester United in the European Cup final – it happens at the highest level as much as at ours.

“But it’s not good as once again we have got ourselves into a good position and not been able to hold on.

“At the end of the day, I’m not going to be too harsh on them because they have worked very hard, but we are bitterly disappointed not to have got the win after being in front.”

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