THE banter can stop for a while now Jon Muleba has opened his Braintree Town goal scoring account with a headed goal that booked the Iron a place in the third qualifying round of this year’s FA Cup.

The former Chelsea trainee scored the second - and what turned out to be winning - goal in Braintree’s 2-1 second qualifying round replay win at Royston Town on Tuesday to help the team set up a trip to Vanarama National League North side Brackley Town in the next round on September 30.

Braintree have Saturday’s home game against Hungerford Town in the Vanarama National League South to deal with before they think about returning to the cup, but Muleba was pleased to make his mark at Royston.

His goal followed one from Phil Roberts and even though the hosts hit back in the second half after Scott Shulton had been sent off, the Iron held on to their lead.

Muleba said he had taken stick at training over his lack of goals up to that point so he was pleased to set that record straight, but while he is targeting further strikes, he knows his principle role in the team is at the other end of the pitch.

He said: “There is always banter going around that I never score any goals and Brad always gives me a bit of stick about it.

“I thought I may get one at Royston and as soon as it went in I pointed to him to just say that I’d delivered and hopefully there are many more to come.

“To be fair, though, it’s not something that I’ve ever focused too much on.

“My job is to defend first and assist the boys going forward, but the ability to get a goal as a defender is always a bonus.

“So I’d like to get a few more this season and I definitely feel there are more there.”

Manager Brad Quinton was pleased that Muleba had broken his scoring duck and that his full-back had delivered on a pre-match promise.

“Jon has popped up with a goal and we’re delighted about that,” added Quinton.

“We spoke before the game and I told him that it was about time that he got one and he said ‘I’ll get you one tonight Gaffer’.

“He did his job so I gave him a tenner out of my pocket and I think he’s happy.”

Muleba was also happy that his goal had turned out to be the winner at Royston and although the Iron made harder work of beating their Evo-Stik Southern League premier division hosts than they perhaps needed to, he was impressed with the way they kept the Crows at bay in the second half.

“I thought, particularly in the first half, that we had the beating of them and we were completely in control of the game,” said Muleba.

“Unfortunately we had the sending off in the second half and it put us on the back foot, but the boys dug deep, pulled together and we got the result.

“Sometimes you have to do that to win and things like that are going to get us through the cup.

“One thing that I’ve noticed in this squad is that we are a really close-knit group and that definitely helped us get through that patch.

“Everyone was together, we fought for one another and we got through it together as a team.”