DESPITE seeing his team’s resolve finally broken by a late goal, Braintree Town Reserves boss Lee Fisher was impressed with their performance against high-flying Whitton United.

Whitton came into the game on the back of a ten-match winning run in Thurlow Nunn League division one, but they had to scramble an 86th minute equaliser to stay unbeaten as the Young Irons continued to impress.

While there was a touch of disappointment that they couldn’t hold on for the win, there was pride from Fisher in his team’s display as they moved u to fifth in the table.

Fisher said: “It was a good game for the neutral, but I felt 1-1 was a fair result.

“We had the first half and they pinned us back in the second, so a draw was fair.

“We had a great chance with Marcel when it was 1-0 and we could have got another before half-time.

“We had three chances in the first half that we didn’t take.

“Make it 2-0 and it’s a different game, but I would have been happy with a point before the game.

“We are a hard team to break down and everyone knows that.

“Whitton said when we beat them 5-2 at their place earlier in the season that it had been their hardest game, so to get that performance from a group of teenagers is good for them. Our average age was less than 20 and we are definitely seeing more maturity from the players.

“We have been working on making them solid as a unit at the back and we build from there.

“You could see that we hadn’t played for two and a half weeks in the last 15 minutes with the fitness levels and the lads came off really downhearted that they hadn’t held on for the win.

“That’s good to see, but we said to them at the end that taking four points off the second-placed team isn’t bad going.

“They shouldn’t beat themselves up and I was happy with the performance.

“We’ve moved up to fifth with the point we took and that’s progression.”

Fisher admitted that his players tired in the latter stages after not having a game for more than two weeks before facing Whitton, but he hopes their run-out will have raised sharpness for their trip to face local rivals Halstead Town on Friday night.

He added: “Hopefully playing on Tuesday has blown away any cobwebs and we can go again.

“I would have rather played on Saturday to have an extra training session on Thursday, but it is on Friday and we’ll have to deal with it.

“Halstead haven’t had a lot of action, but they have been on a good run as well so it will be entertaining.

“You can’t beat a local derby.

“Halstead will be organised and I know they were watching us against Whitton, but we’ll have a few changes.”