Braintree Town may have got the win they wanted to bounce back from their FA Cup frustration but their management team was anything but satisfied with their performance in a 1-0 victory against Oxford City.

The Iron moved up to fifth in the Vanarama National League South table as Ade Cole’s first half penalty secured the points with a four home win in a row.

However, their display fell well short of what boss Glen Driver and assistant manager Tony Kinsella were demanding from their players.

A poor second 45 minutes saw the Iron dominated by the visitors as they were unable to secure meaningful possession and allowed City to press them back for long periods after the break.

And while Kinsella was pleased with a win after Braintree had been beaten 2-0 at Enfield Town in the FA Cup seven days before, he said the second-half show wasn’t acceptable.

Kinsella said: “We weren’t particularly happy with the performance.

“In the first half we did OK in parts, we pressed and created chances, but in the second half, we just sat off them too much.

“We allowed them too much time and space on the ball to get their heads up and pick their passes.

“We work on pressing teams in training, on closing down when we don’t have the ball and (manager) Glen (Driver) and myself felt in the second that that we just weren’t good enough.

“When you are the home team you have got to ask questions of your visitors.

“You can’t just sit off and let them play so they dictate the game and we did too much of that in the second half.

“We felt that we had to make changes to try and pick the game up again to try to get our foot on the ball and start playing again.

“We created a few chances in the second half but they were in the ascendancy and they had chances.

“We have to be better than that at home, we have to force the issue and not let the away team force the issue.

“Our foot was off the pedal in that second half and we just didn’t dominate.”

Braintree’s win took them up into the top five in the Vanarama National League South table and they have now taken 16 points from their last six games.

But even though they have had some strong displays in that spell, Kinsella knows they have to be better at home than they were against Oxford.

He added: “We have gone away from home to good sides like Chippenham and Havant (& Waterlooville) and Concord and we have ground out some good results.

“But we feel at home we need to dominate matches more.

“We are doing it in spells like we did over 45 minutes against Dulwich, but we feel over 90 minutes, we have got to try to dominate matches more.

“It’s hard with the resources we have got and the small squad we’ve got to change things up too much.

“If we’d have had a bigger squad, I think we’d have made a few more changes after the FA Cup game.

“That wasn’t acceptable because we didn’t show enough hunger or desire.

“As a coach, I can coach any session you like, but I can’t coach hunger and desire and we didn’t show enough of that passion at Enfield to earn a result.

“We came into the game against Oxford and demanded of the boys that we had to pick our work rate up and had to start dominating the opposition.

“We felt we did that for periods in the first half but for the second half, we just sat off Oxford and let them dictate play.

“For a home side, that’s just not acceptable.”