Braintree Town will be keen to make sure there is no unwelcome season’s first when they once again make the 620-mile round trip to Barrow tonight.

It will be the second time this year that the Iron have headed up to Cumbria and they will be hoping to see action when they arrive this time after the previous trek ended with the game being called off just over an hour before kick-off.

They will also be hoping to avoid a third straight defeat – following losses at Aldershot and Macclesfield in the last nine days.

Braintree haven’t lost three league games in a row all season and boss Danny Cowley is eager for that not to happen now as his sixth-placed side look to keep their Vanarama National League play-off hopes on track.

Cowley said: “All season, when we’ve had a disappointment, we’ve gone again and I don’t think we’ve lost more than two games on the trot all season.

“That’s an incredible effort for a club of our size in what is a really unforgiving league.

“We were disappointed after the game (at Macclesfield) and disappointed with our mentality, our approach and our reaction to things that happened in the game.

“Things will go against you in football and people will score against you when you are in the ascendancy like we were.

“You have to accept that and be big enough and brave enough to puff your chest out, push your shoulders back and get on with it.

“I just felt we didn’t take enough individual responsibility in the key moments of the game and that was why we ultimately came up short.”

Braintree head into tonight’s game sitting sixth in the Vanarama National League table but knowing that their play-off future still lies very much in their own hands.

They are just a point behind fifth-placed Tranmere and have two games in hand, but know a win tonight would be a boost ahead of Saturday’s home fixture against second-placed Forest Green Rovers.

The Iron will hope for better fortune than on their previous trip up to the Furness Building Society Stadium in February, though.

That ended with them making the 310-mile trek north only to see the game postponed less than two hours before kick-off after heavy rain that morning left the pitch waterlogged.