HARRY Beadle made his debut for Braintree Town against an Ipswich Town XI after joining them on loan from Colchester United.

The 20-year-old defender has linked up with the National League South side on loan, ahead of the new campaign.

Beadle took part in a cracker watched by a big crowd at Cressing Road who were entertained by attacking football by both sides, with Town winning 1-0 in a game that should have seen more goals.

Along with Beadle, Braintree also gave a debut to Ben Tomkins, who has joined on loan from Luton Town.

 

Two trialists were also included for the Iron, with the rest of the side and subs made of already-signed players.

Against a young, full-time Ipswich side, Braintree more than held their own throughout in an entertaining game.

They showed some great football going forward creating several chances in both halves but just failed with that final ball into the danger area.

Braintree manager Angelo Harrop said: "I thought we worked really hard, had cohesion and commitment across the team and we created some potentially good goalscoring chances against obviously a strong, quick and impressive young side.

"We know the areas we have to work on but I felt it was a much better performance than in our recent two pre-season friendlies.

"The two trialists were impressive and again I felt defensively we did well and we were quick to the ball, passed well and moved forward well and it was just that last touch in front of goal that at times let us down.

"All these games have provided us with good preparation for our opening league game at Taunton next Saturday and we have a clear week ahead to work out on set pieces and the like.

"We've still some tidying up to do with signings but I'm sure we will be all fit and organised for what is a tough opening game away which will involve a long journey and everybody can't wait to get started."

 

Braintree showed great tenacity and patience in their build-up play and a trialist was twice unlucky not to score.

Nnamdi Nwachuku also went close three times in the first half and twice again in the second period while in midfield, Leon Davies and George Quantrell both looked solid.

The only goal of the game came in the 68th minute when Iron keeper Jack Sims made an uncharacteristic error to give the visitors a simple tap-in from close range.

But Sims more than made up for it with some smart saves, when the visitors pressed hard.

Twice in each half the Iron saw shots scrambled away off the visitors' area and with a little more patience in other attacks, could easily have found the net.

But it was an extremely good workout for Braintree with Harrop adding: "We know it's going to be a tough season but we will be fully prepared and do even better than we did last season."