Braintree Town's raw and inexperienced side came face to face with reality on Saturday when they tumbled to a 4-0 home defeat to Tonbridge Angels in their first match of the new National League South season. Even though their transfer embargo has now been lifted, there had been no time to sign or borrow new players and so it was essentially a team from the Isthmian League North that took the field - and it soon showed. They were, in manager Steve Pitt's words "nowhere near good enough". He said: "There's no way you can give away goals like that. "It wouldn't be good enough in a Sunday league game, and it's certainly not good enough for me. "We capitulated after they scored their first goal. There's lots there for me to digest." It was a fair assessment. The team had started brightly, with quick movement on and off the ball, some neat control and poise. But the defence had always been expected to find it more difficult to adjust to this level and so it proved as all four goals were preventable. The first came after a quarter of an hour when defenders were out of position, or not paying close enough attention to what was going on. There was far too much hesitation at the critical moment and it was Lamar Reynolds, on Iron's books in 2022-23, who nipped in to score. The second goal, after 34 minutes, was if anything even more indefensible. A header came back off the bar and while the Iron back line looked around to see what was happening, the much more alert Jephte Tanga rammed the ball into the net. A 2-0 deficit at half-time was not insurmountable but within five minutes, the game was as good as gone when Tanga, in oceans of space on the edge of the penalty area, added the third. The final kick in the teeth came in added time when substitute Frankie Baker escaped attention and ran free from the halfway line to place the ball past stand-in keeper Rylee Mitchell. This was a fairly modest Tonbridge who finished 14th last season. Much tougher tests are to come. Iron supporters can only hope the squad are fast learners, or, more importantly, they are augmented by fresh faces sooner rather than later. Next fixture: vs Chelmsford City (away, 2026-12-26).