Danny Cowley tweaked his regular game plan to try to give Braintree Town an edge in their FA Cup replay at Oxford United and the Iron manager was proud of how his players rose to the challenge.

The odds were always stacked against Braintree making it into the second round for the first time in their history against a side flying high in League Two.

So the 3-1 defeat should come as little surprise, however, just as they had in the first encounter at the Avanti Stadium ten days before, the Iron did themselves, their club and the 147 fans who made the trip from Essex proud.

Kenny Davis’ 32nd minute penalty put the visitors ahead in the replay, but a Liam Sercombe equaliser just before half-time and two goals from Patrick Hoban goals after the break saw the U’s through.

However, Cowley felt his team could hold their heads high.

“I’m immensely proud of my team,” said the Iron boss.

“We were beaten by the better team but that’s no disrespect to us because I think they are a marvellous football team.

“I thought we were excellent.

“We carried out our game plan and to beat a team like Oxford in the confident mood that they are in, you need everything going for you.

“Michael Cheek was excellent, but he picked up a bit of a hamstring (injury) towards the end of the first half and we weren’t able to get the same out of him in the second half.

“He and Sean (Marks) had caused them such a problem.

“I think the game plan was to try to be better than them in areas where we could be.

“We knew what they were and we just wanted to make it a cup tie.

“That’s why we went two up front and it’s probably the first time this season that we’ve done that.

“When you come into a game that you’re not expected to win, the safest and easiest thing is to play the system you play, particularly when you’ve been doing well away from home like we have.

“But we felt if we did that, we’d be giving up territory and it would be on their terms.

“They are a terrific team and they want to play through the thirds to open you up by playing between the lines.

“I thought we did a really good job of keeping the ball on one side and making the right decisions of when to press and when to keep shape.

“When we were in shape, we had a really good compactness about us and up until their goal, I don’t think they had a chance.

“They had pretty much a hurricane on their backs in the first half and I thought we limited them to very few chances.

“That’s credit to what we did and the way the players focused without the ball.

“In the second half, I have to give them credit as they upped the speed of their play and they moved the ball very quickly.

“They are frightening on the counter-attack.

“They got down our side for the second and as soon as they went two-one up we had to open up.

“That was what they wanted and it became very difficult.”