BRAINTREE Town manager Ryan Maxwell said there were plenty of good things to take from his side's friendly defeat against Bishop's Stortford, writes DAVID WARD.

The Iron were beaten 1-0 in their second pre-season game of the summer, at Cressing Road.

It turned out to be a proverbial game of two halves for Braintree, with the home side dominating the first before a completely new line-up for the second, except for experienced keeper Preston Edwards, saw them for most of the period playing second best to an impressive visitors' outfit.

But Maxwell was more than pleased with the overall performance of his players, reaffirming his previous view that the result of such matches was immaterial and more important was how the players were locking in to how he wants the side to play.

Maxwell said: "The link-up play and the pattern of our play was extremely good and there are good signs all round with our display.

"The players are implementing what we tell them and how we want them to play our fast, aggressive style and after only two week's training we've already come a long way.

"Yes, there's still a lot of hard work to do but I'm really encouraged by what I've seen so far.

"The first half was particularly impressive and I felt we were in charge and in reality we should have come in at the break two goals in the lead.

"Obviously with the wholesale changes we made at half time with several new players and trialists coming in and finding their feet we lost a little of our momentum but again the players worked hard and created chances while the one goal we did concede was down to unfamiliarity with players at the back but I'm not disappointed with that as we will continue to improve.

"Again there were some exciting individual performances too and I believe we're on the right track but we must keep the momentum of our style going."

Braintree's next friendly is at home to National League side Dagenham and Redbridge, next Saturday.

He added: "We've no midweek game so it will again be hard training sessions and then we need to prepare for next Saturday's home game with Dagenham & Redbridge who are of course in the top level of the National League and that will again be a severe test for everyone."