Braintree Town have already been benefiting from lessons learned during their FA Cup run this season.

A 3-1 first round replay defeat at Oxford United meant there would be no historic place in the second round for manager Danny Cowley’s side.

Kenny Davis’ first-half penalty gave hope that Braintree could overturn the odds and triumph in the replay at Oxford on Tuesday, but the quality of the League Two side shone through in the end.

However, far from wallowing in their exit, Braintree are embracing the lessons they have learned from going toe-to-toe with a high-flying Football League side.

Cowley said: “You enjoy the experience of facing a team like Oxford; you embrace it and you have to learn from it.

“We have already nicked two of Oxford’s corner routines that we picked up from the first time we played them and we scored from the two short corners at Halifax last Saturday as a result of it.

“I hope he (Oxford manager Michael Appleton) hasn’t got a copyright on them!

“We watched their restarts from the first game in our preparation and they were excellent.

“They have so many different options and they just work it out and move you around – it’s like a choreographed dance with their movement.

“We just tried to copy it, so we worked on it and got two goals as a consequence of it.

“You have to learn and that’s something I’m always trying to do. I come from an educational background and learning is the most wonderful thing.

“I want to learn, to improve so we can become better.

“As a coach, you try to improve tactically and when you are exposed to marvellous football teams like Oxford, you learn lots.”

Braintree’s focus will now return to the Vanarama National League as they host Kidderminster Harriers at the Avanti Stadium on Saturday.

There will be inevitable disappointment about their cup exit, but Cowley doesn’t feel there will be any lingering hangover for his players.

“We’ll be fine,” he added.

“There will always be disappointment because there’s a dream and we came into the (Oxford replay) game believing we could win. You have to feel that and we believed it.

“We knew it would be tough and things would have to for us.

“We came up a bit short, but we’ll make sure we all learn from it because if we don’t, we’ll be foolish.

“We want to keep improving and to do that, we have to keep learning.”