Braintree exploit Dover's weaknesses
The Whites' woes continued at a pace with another disappointing performance in front of a sparse Crabble crowd as the experienced George Borg's Braintree were well worth their victory with three well-taken breakaway goals.
Dover Athletic's head coach Richard Langley once again made a number of changes to the side that lined up four days earlier against Worthing, with the defence being completely rebuilt.
There was a welcome return for Paul Hyde, Dean Readings and Nicky Humphrey after their recent injury problems while Ricky Spiller was brought into defence to play at the troublesome right back slot.
This allowed Craig Cloke and Tom Hickman to move into midfield and replace the ineffective Billy Bone who could not even find a place on the substitutes bench.
The only bonus on this mediocre performance was the return of Craig Wilkins from the bench to head the Whites consolation goal in the 90th minute.
Other than a wasted corner in the ninth minute from Dover, the half belonged to the Essex side who dictated the play and the midfield and had two goals disallowed for offside in the opening half hour while highly rated Bertie Brayley missed three gilt edged chances as the defence struggled to cope with the quick interplay.
The inevitable goal came in the 37th minute when a ball over the top of the defence allowed skipper Bradley Quinton the time and space to run on and round Hyde and place the ball into an empty net.
There was some respite for Dover just before half time when well-travelled goals scorer Gary Abbott limped off injured to be replaced by Rob Martin.
The second began with Dover at least looking threatening when a long throw from Cloke caused confusion in the box and a James Rogers' free kick nearly saw former Bromley defender Ollie Adedeji slice the ball into his own net.
From the resulting corner, Cloke's effort was blocked leading to another goalmouth scramble, which saw Chris Wright's effort cleared from the line, while Matt Carruthers follow up, ballooned over the bar.
The emergence of Wilkins lifted the quiet crowd and he showed his class immediately with a couple of efforts that just went wide of the upright.
The Whites inabillty to score while dominating the proceedings came back to haunt them with a breakaway goal, when the missing Spiller was exposed down the right and Brayley slotted home past an exposed Hyde.
The disappointing Spiller was immediately replaced by Lawrence Ball as Langley moved to a 3-4-3 formation, further half chances came with balls into the box as Carruthers shot wide, while Cloke headed over from a deep Dale Skelton cross.
The third Braintree goal came in the 88th minute as they broke away quickly and attacked Dover's weak left hand side and Louie Evans had the easiest of tasks to shoot past Hyde.
Wilkins' consolation came in injury time when he rose highest to flick a Skelton free kick into the corner of the net.
Once again their inability to defend on the flanks was Dover's undoing as their lack of defensive experience came back to expose them once again, and the continued theory of playing midfielders at full back in a 4-4-2 formation is something that is clearly not working and needs to be rectified immediately or further misery could be on the way.
Dover Athletic: Hyde, Spiller (Ball), Rogers, Readings, Humphrey, Cloke, Skelton, Hickman, Smissen (Wilkins), Wright (Smidmore), Carruthers - Subs: Lane, Mullin (GK)
