While he was impressed with his team’s attacking play and delighted with another win on the road, Braintree Town manager Danny Cowley was less happy with some aspects of their defence in a 6-3 victory at FC Halifax Town.

A Michael Cheek hat-trick, goals for Sammie Szmodics and Alex Woodyard and Kenny Davis’ penalty were highlights for the Iron in their sixth Vanarama National League away win of the season.

However, there were elements of their defensive play that left Cowley demanding more from his players.

The Iron came into the game at the Shay Stadium boasting the division’s best goals-against record, but their manager felt his team failed to match their own high standards in the first half.

He said: “It was an amazing game and I can’t remember being involved in one quite like it if I’m honest.

“We’ve come to Halifax, who are a massive club, and beaten them by three goals.

“We should be pleased, but if I’m honest, there was a subdued atmosphere in the changing room because we know we didn’t get as much control of the game as we would have liked.

“We pride ourselves on our organisation without the ball and doing the ugly things well for the team in a game, but we had too many in the first half doing what they wanted.

“They were doing the nice things and maybe doing things for themselves a bit.

“But credit to them in the second half as we managed to regroup and got much more organisation about us.

“We managed to stop them switching the play on us and we got hold of the game.

“In the second half we looked a good team.

“Typical me, I’m moaning about us defensively – I should be praising us about our attacking play because some of our attacking play was excellent.

“Some of our movement and the quality of our passing and of our finishing was great.”