TRURO City warmed up for their huge FA Cup clash at Sutton United by securing an impressive 2-1 success at strugglers Braintree Town in National League South on Saturday.

On a day which saw frontman Tyler Harvey make his 300th appearance for the club, the hosts led after just eight minutes through Courtney Senior.

The Tinners came back to life and levelled through centre-half Max Kinsey’s header, and went ahead after the break via another set-piece goal, this time from Will Dean.

They then rode out plenty of late home pressure to move up to fourth in the table ahead of a two-week break from league action, joint level with two sides above them in Salisbury and Billericay Town.

City boss John Askey made three changes to his starting line-up from Tuesday night’s 2-2 draw at Farnham Town as Luke Jephcott, Tom Dean and Tom Tweedy all came in for Zac Bell, Ben Starkie and Yassine En-Neyah. Striker Omar Bogle wasn’t fit to be involved after going off injured in Surrey four days earlier.

The Iron, who City had never beaten in a league fixture, flew out of the traps and led when Senior slotted in Saleem Akanbi’s cross.

However, it was soon Truro on top as Jack Stretton beat debutant goalkeeper Ben Hughes, but not the post, although they were level on 21 minutes when Jephcott’s corner was met by Kinsey.

Hughes denied Harvey moments later with a brilliant reaction save, before Truro keeper Aidan Stone had to be at his best to turn Senior’s goal-bound shot around the post.

Stretton and Jephcott could have done better before the break, however it was the latter’s corner on 52 minutes that ended with Dean forcing the ball over the line following Hughes’ fumble.

Reuben Swann tested Swann, and Braintree gradually piled more and more pressure onto the Cornish backline, eventually ending with Stone making a brilliant save late on to deny George Evans from close-range.

Truro held on despite five minutes of added time as they now look forward to Saturday’s trip to Sutton, the Londoners standing in the way of just a second-ever spot in the First Round Proper of the FA Cup.

Assistant boss Stewart Yetton said: “It got a bit messy the last 20, 25 minutes. We just got sucked into their tactics.

“There were a lot of fouls going on all game and I thought we dealt with that really well up until the sort of 70th minute and we sort of lost a bit of discipline, giving away silly free-kicks and it becomes a bit of a long ball game and a bit scrappy and stop-start, so certainly very gritty. We’re really pleased to have won, but there’s plenty there that we can do better going forward.”

He continued: “The goal is obviously a poor goal to give away, collectively that is, so we’ll have to go away and have a look at that, but I thought the lads responded magnificently.

“We’ve scored and then had two or three really good chances in the first half, so if we came in three or 4-1 I think that’d have been fair. But fair play to the boys for bouncing back and then we’ve gone out there second half and got the goal and got the three points.”

TRURO CITY: Stone; Riley-Lowe (capt), W Dean, Harrison, Harvey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jephcott, Stretton (Greenslade, 83), Kinsey, T Dean, Tweedy. Subs not used: Lavercombe (gk), Bell, Donnellan, En-Neyah, Law, Starkie.