BRAINTREE Town Reserves joint manager John Pike says the club are working hard again to try to create a flow of players through their ranks towards the first team.

Under previous manager Lee Fisher last season, the Young Irons began to see a number of players pressing up towards involvement with the first-team squad and Pike said it was a policy he and fellow joint boss Dave Childs were keen to continue now they are at the helm.

He said he and Childs had inherited a big squad of players from manager Anton Smith, who was in charge at the start of the current campaign, and they were looking to trim that back, but he felt they were moving in the right direction.

Part of that has been bringing first-team player Christian Frimpong, who is injured at the moment, into the reserves' coaching set-up.

Pike said: “We have a massive squad and we’re trying to give everyone a chance to show their full potential.

“We are trying to work with the first team and, being a reserve side, our first job is to support them.

“We now have Christian Frimpong involved with us on board as part of the management set-up and he’s the link to the first-team.

“He’s now looking at players in training and in games and he’s feeding back information to the first-team management.

“So there is the link there now and we’ve seen players getting invited to participate in first-team training.

“It’s an important bond to have for the club going forward and we feel we have been turning some good results around."

The Young Irons are sat 15th in the Thurlow Nunn League division one south table with nine games left to play this season.

They were beaten 4-1 by Little Oakley at Cressing Road last weekend after being ahead at half-time as the Acorns hit them with a three-goal blitz in ten minutes after the break.

Braintree Reserves head to the side directly below them in the table - Lopes Tavares - on Saturday and are then due to travel the short distance along the A120 to Coggeshall United on Tuesday evening (kick-off 7.45pm).