A SPIRITED fightback after they appeared dead and buried brought Braintree Town an unexpected point from a 2-2 draw against their near neighbours Chelmsford City in Tuesday’s National League South clash, writes RON FOSKER.

For the first hour of the match, watched by a season’s best crowd of 805, Chelmsford outmuscled and out-thought the home side.

While higher-placed sides have been hustled out of their stride by Braintree’s high and hard pressing game, this time it was the visitors who did the hustling.

City showed greater intensity and it was no surprise when they took the lead in the 12th minute.

Dara Dada’s header from a free kick was initially ruled out for offside but after consulting his assistant, referee Lloyd Wood awarded the goal.

It was nearly 2-0 17 minutes later but Correy Davidson cleared a Danny Imray header off the line with keeper Billy Johnson beaten.

Davidson had been one of the brighter lights in Braintree’s approach play, having one shot blocked, another saved and a third hitting the outside of the post.

But it was at the other end that what looked like being the killer blow was struck less than two minutes after the interval.

Tom Blackwell, lively throughout, ran clear on the left, turned inside and had time to realign the angles twice before shooting past Johnson.

Chelmsford continued to press but 20 minutes later the game turned on its head. A defensive slip allowed the ball to run on to Luke Holness with only the goalkeeper to beat. He appeared to mis-hit the shot but it sneaked in the corner of the net.

Four minutes later Holness and Kyran Clements had shots blocked after a corner and then a header from substitute Stefan Ilic passed just wide of the post.

Clements came close again when he narrowly failed to turn in a Johnson header from a free kick and finally it was Ilic – the architect of much that was good in the fightback – who got round the back of the defence and slammed the ball in the net after a Jay Porter free kick had been knocked out.

It enabled Braintree to leave the field with a spring in their step but their performance in the first hour showed that there is still much work to be done.

Braintree: Billy Johnson; Matt Moloney, Kyran Clements, Luke Pennell, Jay Porter; Gio Crichlow (Dejon Noel-Williams 55), Alfie Payne, Matt Johnson, Kamil Conteh (Michael Dome Bemwin 71), Correy Davidson (Stefan Ilic 63); Luke Holness (Dejon Noel-Williams 68)