Tilbury 8, Braintree Town 1

TILBURY pulled out a demolition job on visiting National League Braintree to comprehensively win through in Tuesday (28 October) evening's BBC Essex Senior Cup third round tie.

The Iron put out a side packed with youngsters - no less than eight of their squad were making a first team debut.

And Tilbury were in no mood to give them an easy time, including debutant young goalkeeper Lewis Athersmith who found himself besieged for much of the night.

Braintree had the first significant attack when Oscar Bain crossed for Joe Wood but his effort was cleared away.

Dockers were soon on the offensive and after good work by Dan Trendall, Alex Balisani forced a decent save from Athersmith.

Soon after Tilbury thought they had opened the scoring in the 12th minute when Balisani slipped a pass through to Tyler Forbes who in turn set up Kieran Jones who found the net but the effort was ruled out for offside.

But six minutes later the opener did arrive, when Forbes was played through and he produced an accomplished first-time strike that flew into the top corner.

And the second came just a couple of minutes later when Oli Spooner and Jones linked up to create an opening, with the latter running through and scoring.

The third followed on 33 and Jones was involved again, delivering a fine cross that Trendall headed home.

Tilbury went into the break four up with a 41st minute effort coming from Spooner who nipped in to finish after a scramble in the box following Forbes' cross.

Dockers made changes at the interval and Jake Forbes came on, scoring with his first touch for the club.

Tilbury were in no mood to ease up and the sixth goal came in the 51st minute when Jones picked the ball up at the end of the area and drilled a shot into the bottom corner.

Braintree finally had a moment to savour on 55 minutes when Joe Wood got on the end of a free kick delivered into the box and forced the ball home through a melee of players for his first professional goal.

Dockers were soon back on the attack and Athersmith added to his collection with two excellent saves

But he was unable to do anything on 70 minutes when Jack Hayes, who had been switched from centre-back to forward, intercepted a pass as the young Irons tried to play out from the back and he took full advantage for the home side's seventh goal.

And the scoring was wrapped up in front of 123 spectators nine minutes from time when Spooner turned to create space on the edge of the box and fired home to set up a home fourth round tie with Harwich & Parkeston in the week beginning 17 November.