Kenny Davis insists that nobody at Braintree Town is getting carried away with the position that the Iron have got themselves into this year.

It is a similar situation to the one that the club found themselves in at the same stage two years ago and that ended with them missing out on a place in the Conference play-off places by just three points.

The Iron have had a spell away from Vanarama National League action this week, but ahead of Saturday’s trip to Southport and Tuesday’s home game against Boreham Wood, they have played 28 games.

Winning their last three league outings has taken them to 49 points by the start of February, compared to the 2013/14 campaign when they had 45 points after 28 games and a month less to squeeze in their remaining 18 fixtures.

Iron skipper Davis feels that the team are better-placed now than they were two years ago, but he is also realistic about how far there is to go before anyone starts dreaming of a top-five finish.

He said: “We were three points off the play-offs two years ago and I think we’re in a better shape now than we were at the same stage of the season back then.

“I think we’re in a better shape squad-wise but there are a lot of games to go.

“We’ve still got 18 to play, so there are a lot of points to play for.

“We can’t get carried away.

“We do know what we can achieve, but we all have to keep our heads down and keep feet on the ground.”

Rearranged games from postponements in December and January mean that the Iron have played up to four games fewer than some of clubs around them.

However, two years ago, Braintree didn’t complete their 28th game until March 1, so getting to that point a complete month earlier this time around means fixture congestion may not be quite as big a concern now as it was then.

“I don’t think the fixture backlog now is as severe as it was two years ago,” added Davis. “We played a lot of games at the beginning of the season for this reason, so I think we’ll be better off now than then.

“But we’ve shown that we can handle busy runs of games.

“We won three home games in a week last week so we’re well adapted to it.

“We were still able to put in 100 per cent and I think it worked in our favour.”