BRAINTREE Town were beaten 3-0 at Oldham Athletic in their National League opener, writes DAVID WARD.

This was a perhaps an expected early wake-up call for the Iron camp after what was a disappointing performance at Boundary Park against admittedly a well-financed home side already favourites for promotion back to the Football League.

But certainly on reflection in the first half, Braintree 'simply weren't at the races' although in fairness they vastly improved in the final third of the game thanks to four good substitutions.

Iron followers knew it was going to be a hard start to the new campaign with practically an entirely new team, with just Tom Blackwell and defender Joe Grimwood - back on loan from Barnet - remaining - to gel.

(Image: JON WEAVER)

It showed against a slicker, more cohesive Latics side who were also quicker to the ball, passed better and for the first 45 minutes dominated the game.

However, at any level of football basic defensive mistakes cost goals and that's what happened to the Iron on three occasions in this game.

Unfortunately they paid the price, showing there's a great deal of work to do in this department after last season's outstanding defence that paved the way for promotion.

The other clear problem for the Iron was in attack where until the subs came on, they never really threatened the home defence.

Starting with two big strikers - John Akinde and Inih Effiong - up front clearly didn't work on this showing at least without someone having the pace up front like the home side had and feeding off them, such a goal poacher like Aaron Blair of last season.

(Image: JON WEAVER)

Oldham took the lead after only nine minutes when the tricky Jes Uchegbulam, who proved a constant threat down the Iron's right flank, scored helped by a defensive lapse.

And the Latics doubled their lead on 28 minutes again through a basic disorganised defensive mistake, with Harry Charsley allowed the space and time to fire the ball past keeper Jacob Knightsbridge.

Iron had a great chance to score in added first-half stoppage time when they won a penalty.

But it was poorly-placed spot-kick from Effiong that was more like a pass to keeper Mathew Hudson, who had the easiest of saves.

A goal then would of course have given the Iron renewed belief but then 12 minutes into the restart, Braintree conceded another sloppy goal.

(Image: JON WEAVER)

Mike Fondop arrived from the right to sink the ball into the bottom of the Iron net.

To their credit, Braintree still kept battling and much needed fresh legs from the substitutes certainly gave them fresh impetus.

For the final 20 minutes of the game, they at last started to cause the Oldham problems.

The 97 loyal Iron fans in the 5,552 crowd who made the long trek north will be encouraged by the late rally and improved team performance.

It's early days of course and there's a long season ahead and the Iron clearly have the quality in the squad.

But a sterner and better drilled defence is crucial, as is scoring goals at the other end.