AFTER suffering their heaviest defeat of the season Alan Devonshire has urged his Braintree Town squad to 'roll up their sleeves and get on with it'.
The Iron were thrashed 5-1 at home on Tuesday night by high-flying Wrexham, a result that leaves them third from bottom of the Blue Square Bet Premier table.
And while Devonshire acknowledges his side are in the midst of a relegation battle he says the only way out of it is old fashioned graft.
"We don't want to be where we are but the only way out of it is hard work," he said.
"We defended poorly, we didn't play well at all. We've got to roll up our sleeves up and get on with it.
"There were collective and individual errors, it was just a poor, poor performance. We've got to stop making these silly mistakes."
On exactly the same weekend last season Braintree lost 5-1 at home to Forest Green before going on to finish comfortably in 12th place.
Devonshire feels his team can use that experience to their advantage and get back on the winning trail sooner rather than later.
"We got beaten 5-1 at home against Forest Green last season so it's happened before," he said.
"Wrexham are a decent side and we gifted them goals and we've got to learn from that and go forward.
"It's not worth harbouring on it, it was a poor performance and we've got to get on with the next games because they come thick and fast between now and Christmas."
Next up is an FA Trophy first round clash against Blue Square Bet South side Havant & Waterlooville. Forward Sean Marks and midfielder Brad Quinton are likely to miss that game with injury and Devonshire is wary of the opposition who are currently 17th in their division.
"We've got to bounce back as quickly as possible and hopefully that'll be on Saturday," he said.
"It's going to be tough because they'll be up for in Havant so it's going to be a tough game."
Devonshire says he'll make changes to his starting line-up for Saturday and also hinted their could be some comings and goings on the transfer front.
"We'll see, we'll see there could be," he said.
"I know the areas I'm looking at strengthening but I'm not saying anything at the moment."
