FINAL SCORE

BRAINTREE 2

Chiedozie 60; Smith 92 BATH CITY 0

Bath City’s recent revival came to a juddering halt as they were undone by two inspired finishes after the break by strugglers Braintree Town.

Jordan Chiedozie’s expertly placed volley and Liam Smyth’s fabulous 25-yarder, both scored on the counter, earned the Iron their first home win for five months.

Ryan Brunt was denied on the line in the closest City came to rescuing a point for the Romans, but they were a long-way off performance levels from their recent three-game winning streak. Coupled with Slough and Weymouth scoring 10 between them, Jerry Gill’s men dropped to fourth in National League South ahead of next week’s meeting with the Dorset outfit.

Gill opted for an unchanged side for the third match running, with new signing Lloyd James among the substitutes. City started positively with Dan Martin’s whipped cross on 13 minutes locating Sam Pearson at the far post, but the young Welshman was unable to direct it on target, hitting the sidenetting from a difficult angle.

Braintree went into the match without a goal in 309 minutes, and this drought was further illustrated when Chiedozie curled a 20-yard free-kick out of Cressing Road.

Dan Bowry and Tom Smith were restricted to attempts from distance, both firing wide, as the fiveman Town midfield swamped City.

James was brought on at the break for back injury victim Frankie Artus but the half followed a similar pattern to the first, Braintree tirelessly shackling City.

Having comfortably soaked up the pressure, the Iron nicked an opener with a well-executed break on the hour with Chiedozie sidefooting across Ryan Clarke into the bottom right corner.

On 75 minutes City wasted a glorious opening. Pearson’s terrific work on the byline saw him pull it back to Raynes just inside the area. The Bathonian scuffed his shot against Brunt who tried to force it home, but a posse of orange shirts snuffed it out.

With two minutes of stoppage time played, the Romans piled bodies forward to hunt for a point. James’ delivery saw Dan Matsuzaka vitally intercept, to help set up a counter led by substitute Smyth. The Stevenage loanee decided to go it alone and it proved a wise move as he cut inside from 25 yards and thundered an unstoppable drive past Clarke, in off the underside of the bar, to seal their first home win in 11 matches.