The demands being placed on Braintree Town’s squad as they bid for a Vanarama National League play-off finish in the next few weeks aren’t holding any terrors for Alex Woodyard.

A number of injuries and illness within the camp have stretched the Iron’s playing resources in recent weeks and boss Danny Cowley has underlined that a top-five finish is still a long way off.

Following yesterday’s Bank Holiday defeat at Aldershot, Braintree now have another two games on the road in the next week – at Macclesfield today and then a mammoth trek to Barrow on Tuesday.

They then face promotion pushers Forest Green Rovers at home on April 9 and follow that, three days later, with another long mid-week trip to play-off rivals Grimsby Town.

It’s clear that if Braintree are going to make the play-offs this year, they won’t be doing it the easy way, but Woodyard isn’t fazed by testing games coming thick and fast if they can keep results going their way.

“When you’re winning games, it makes it a lot easier,” he said.

“When it’s like that, you just want the games to keep coming.

“There are seven games left now so we’ll just give it our all until the end of the year.

“We have a real team-work ethic.

“Having the record of clean sheets (21 so far this year) that we do goes to show how much hard work we are putting in.

“We pride ourselves on being an attack to defence team.

“Keeping clean sheets mean we’re always in games.”

Apart from helping Braintree move towards a history-making conclusion to the campaign, the last few weeks have seen personal glory for Woodyard on the international stage.

The 22-year-old former Southend United trainee was handed the accolade of the England C captaincy by boss Paul Fairclough and led the Young Lions to a 2-0 win in their International Challenge Trophy opener against the Ukraine in Kiev.

Woodyard added: “It was brilliant and to be captain as well was amazing.

“Being captain for the first time and getting the win – you can’t get any better than that.

“You don’t realise how good it is until you take a step back and look at it.

“It’s the best thing that’s happened to me in my career and I just thank Paul Fairclough for giving me the opportunity to captain my country.

“Paul Fairclough was very pleased with us afterwards.

“There was only one thing that we were looking to do out there and that was to win the game.”