Braintree Town defender Dave Nieskens says they have to be more canny in their own 18-yard box or they will keep paying the penalty in the Vanarama National League this year.

Like his team-mates, the Dutch centre-half was gutted to see a valuable point surrendered in the 95th minute of their game against Maidstone United on Saturday as a last-gasp Stones attacked ended with contact in the area and referee John Smith pointing to the spot.

Blair Turgott stepped forward to convert and break Iron hearts and while Nieskens could see why the penalty had been given, he felt it was a needless one in the same way that they had been caught out at Dagenham and Redbridge at the start of the month and says they must be more worldly-wise in their own area.

Nieskens said: “That result (against Maidstone) still feels very hard to take because we were the better team for 93 minutes, but we switched off for one minute and we conceded the goal.

“In my opinion, we had lots of chances and it was a silly penalty – the second one in the last five games – that hurt us.

“That has to go because you can’t do that in this league.

“We have to be thinking about that – it was the same at Dagenham; when you touch a player, they are going to go down and nine out of ten referees will give the penalty.

“We have to be more careful about that.

“Teams punish you and all your hard work is for nothing, but we have to stick together and go again.

“We have to keep believing in ourselves because we looked good throughout that game."

However, Nieskens also feels that Braintree's players need to step up at the other end of the pitch as well to make sure they are capitalising on all the good that is currently not getting its reward.

He added: “We know we are better than many other teams even though we’re part-time and they aren’t.

“That’s good from us; we have a good shape.

“In my opinion, though, if you have four or five chances in a game, you have to score at least once.

“If you don’t score in this league, it puts pressure on the defence.

“When you switch off, they punish you like it was against Maidstone.

“Just one moment – and they go and score.

“I think they had one real chance through the whole of the second half and came away with a goal, while we created four or five chances.

“We have to work on that."