WHILE he and his Braintree Town Reserves team-mates are taking nothing for granted, striker Joe Jones feels they can still target a top-three finish in Thurlow Nunn League division one this year.

Jones was on target twice as the Young Irons beat Debenham LC last weekend and they head into Saturday’s trip to Diss Town sitting sixth in the table and just ten points behind third-placed Swaffham Town.

With 17 league games, including Tuesday’s home fixture against AFC Sudbury Reserves, still to play and with Braintree having taken 22 points from their last eight outings, Jones sees no reason why they shouldn’t set sights on a strong finish to the campaign.

He said: “You always look at the top end of the table, but you can’t take anything for granted and you can only look forward at the next game that you’re playing.

“We have four games in hand over the team directly above us and as long as we keep picking up points from the game that’s in front of us, we will keep on moving up.

“We’re always looking at promotion and with players like we have who want to progress and better themselves then that’s a good thing.

“We have a young team and being in the upper part of the table at this stage, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t still be looking at the top three.”

Jones’ double strike against Debenham saw a welcome return to form for the young forward and he was pleased that they came in a winning cause.

“I can’t remember the last time I had scored,” added Jones.

“I’d had a few setbacks with injury and then not getting 90 minutes and not starting, but when you do get games like the one against Debenham, then there’s no reason why I can’t get more starts and keep pushing.

“I thought we were a bit flat in the first ten minutes of the game and you have to give credit to Debenham as they scored a good goal, but after that, I felt we controlled the game for 80 minutes.

“We took our two chances well and the boys dug in deep.

“Whatever we’re doing on the training pitch is clearly working for us. You can rotate the squad three or four times and you know you will still get a solid performance from us each week.”