No stone will be left unturned by Braintree Town’s new management team as they look to prepare their players as comprehensively as they can for the Vanarama National League this season.

Manager Danny Cowley and assistant boss Nicky Cowley have been having their first chance to work with their full squad since taking the Iron helm after the players returned for pre-season training sessions.

The brothers are clear about what they expect from the team during their summer preparations and issued each member of it with a detailed fitness programme designed to get them ready for the first game of the season in August.

Players had been through two weeks of a pre pre-season programme, building a base level of fitness before stepping that up on their return to scheduled training sessions, however, Nicky said it's not just be about pushing them as hard as they can.

He said: “Firstly, it’s about making sure we get the players as technically and physically prepared as possible come the first game of the season.

“We sent out a pre-season plan to all the players with a number of details of what we expect and they have now come to the end of what we call the pre pre-season.

“We are looking forward to seeing them all and they should have a good base level of fitness for the first session.

“But we’ll also look to give them a good feel for the ball as well as you have to be careful not to over-train them. We won’t ask them to do things like run distances they won’t come across in games because if you don’t plan things properly then you can cause more problems.

“We look to train them clever and train them hard at the same time. There has to be an intelligent approach and it won’t be the gruelling pre-season that I would have seen as a player a few years ago when you were just sent off to climb hills as fast as possible."