Devonshire asks players to be honest over their fitness (From Braintree and Witham Times)

Devonshire asks players to be honest over their fitness

1:41pm Thursday 27th September 2012 in Sport By Simon Spurgeon

Some “kid’s stuff” defending and players overestimating their own readiness to perform left Alan Devonshire fuming after Braintree Town lost 2-0 against Dartford.

The defeat brought the Iron’s winless run in the Blue Square Bet Premier to five games and manager Devonshire was particularly cross about some sloppy defending that gifted the Darts two first-half goals.

He said: “To be fair, I thought it was men against boys.

“We knew what Dartford were about, but they did a good job on us.
“We got done by two free headers.

“It was bad defending and as well as we defended on Saturday (in the 0-0 draw with Stockport), it was kids’ stuff against Dartford.”
 

However, Devonshire was also riled by some of his own players as he felt they hadn’t been honest over the level of their fitness following Saturday’s game.

He added: “Maybe a couple of lads mugged me off from Saturday’s game saying they were OK when they were really struggling.
 

“I’ll let people make their own calls on it, but I was really disappointed with the first-half performance and the way we defended.
 

“What was said in the dressing room stays there.

“What I will say is that there were people not feeling 100 per cent, but when I spoke to them on Sunday, they told me they were fine.

“That’s all I’m saying.

“It’s something that is logged in my mind and I probably won’t now be picking the same team on a Tuesday that I have on a Saturday, whatever the result on the Saturday.
 

“Dartford played at a tempo that we didn’t match in the first half.

“We have played at that tempo before, but for some reason we didn’t this time and that’s something I need to look at.

“But it’s a long old season and we move on.

“The one plus from it was that the fans were behind us the whole time and I was delighted with that.
 

“I want to thank them for that as we let them down with the first-half performance.”