BRAINTREE made the long journey to North Wales and came home beaten by a somewhat harsh 5-1 scoreline.

The visitors started the livelier of the two sides, but fell behind after 20 minutes when Andy Morrell took advantage of confusion in the Iron defence.

Adrian Cieslewicz doubled the home side’s lead just before the break, but Iron responded positively after the interval and Ben Wright reduced the arrears with a header after 53 minutes.

Mathias Pogba opened up the Iron defence to restore Wrexham’s two goal advantage on the hour before two defensive lapses saw the home side score twice in the last two minutes through Danny Wright and a Neil Ashton penalty following Aswad Thomas’ foul on Dean Keates.

After the match, Braintree Manager Alan Devonshire was disappointed with the result, but remained proud of his side’s first year in the division:

“We started OK, but had left ourselves with a lot of work to do by half time. Ben (Wright) got us back in the game, but we had to continue to push forward.

“Credit where it’s due, Wrexham are a good side and punished us. Yes, they were the better side on the day, but the two late goals were not, I felt, a true reflection on the game.

“But I remain very proud of our first season at this level. Having hit our 50 point target, we then set another to finish in the top half and I’m delighted with that achievement. We can now recharge the batteries and prepare to go again next season.”

Iron skipper Kenny Davis has committed his future to the club by agreeing a deal that will see him spend next season at the Amlin Stadium.

Brad Quinton’s appearance as a second-half substitute at Wrexham on Saturday saw him break Braintree’s all-time appearance record. The 32-year old replaced Pat O’Connor after 67 minutes and in doing so, made his 527th appearance and overtook Paul Young’s record of 526 appearances.