TEN games and ten defeats – that’s the miserable statistic that haunts Braintree in London League division two north east.

Braintree’s long suffering management team must be wondering what they have to do to record a win in an horrendous campaign which has so far left them staring relegation firmly in the face.

On the positive side the Black and Ambers played with flair for large periods of a fiercely contested north Essex derby, and only ran out of steam in the last quarter to lose 55-28 at home against Saffron Walden.

But unless they get better commitment to training and a more settled side, their stay in division two north east looks like it is coming to an inevitable end.

Bolstered by several players returning from injury and university studies, Braintree started strongly, applying early pressure and taking a 3-0 lead via a penalty from Joss Adams.

They then secured ball from Walden’s re-start and went on an attack which saw Elliot Dawson make a superb carry from half-way deep into the visitors’ 22.

Dawson off-loaded to Adams whose pass put the impressive Josh Hine in for an unconverted try in the corner and an 8-0 lead.

But they switched off for the next re-start and Walden added two converted tries in quick succession to establish a 14-8 advantage.

Conceding two tries in such a short space of time stung Braintree back into action and their forwards, who matched the visitors to a man, soon set up an unconverted try for Connor Gale.

They continued to make defensive mistakes though and conceded a penalty which Walden kicked into touch before executing a converted pushover try from a line-out catch and drive move for a 21-13 lead.

But in an end-to-end encounter they quickly went on the offensive again and scored their best try of the game.

A well-worked line-out move inside Walden’s 22 saw the ball fed out to Dawson, Adams and then Hine, who left three defenders in his wake to score an unconverted try to pull it back to 21-18 at half-time.

But Braintree did not start the second half as they had the first and Walden scored a converted try on 45 minutes to put themselves 28-18 ahead.

Hine, who completed his hat-trick and then Mark Loftus scored unconverted tries to level the score but that was as good as it got as Walden went on to score 55 points.