Manager Mitch Brundle concedes Dover cannot afford to keep giving themselves mountains to climb after they fought back to draw at home to Braintree on Saturday.

Whites started slowly and trailed to away skipper Kyran Clements’ sixth-minute goal before their captain, James Dunne, converted a penalty to earn them a 1-1 draw.

It had been a similar story in Dover’s opening-day National League South four-goal draw with Torquay at Crabble, where they fought back after being two down inside the first 20 minutes.

Brundle reflected: “Like I’ve just said to the players, you give yourself a mountain to climb before the game, really, has kicked-off and settled in. But it was a great reaction.

“I thought we huffed and puffed for a lot of the game. But they’re a good side, they came seventh last year. I just thought we lacked a little bit of calmness and quality in the final third.

“The players are leaving everything out there.

“Now, it’s just about getting those fine margins and tuning those little bits of play that I thought were sloppy. Set-pieces, we could have affected them and kept hitting the first man, so there’s little things to work on.

Report: Dover 1-1 Braintree

“But overall, it’s a point at home against a top side. It keeps us unbeaten at home from two games. At least we are making progress.

“There are little snippets of the game where we are building, rather than us being static as a team. People are coming back now from injury.

“Hopefully we can, obviously, get them into the team next weekend. We have got a full week of training, which is good.

“We’ll be analysing a lot of the game we’ve just played to just cut out the fine, little, errors. I think we have already started a lot of games, conceding very early.”

The Essex club came close to scoring in the very first minute - even before 26-year-old Clements found the target – as Tom Blackwell hit the post.

“That was a little bit of miscommunication,” explained Brundle. “We came out sloppily.

“That’s something we have to look at. I cannot put my finger on it… If I could, I’d change it!

“It’s something I have to evaluate and see. Maybe, we need to change something to do with the warm-up or how we come out, or whether we do something before kick-off.

“But at Tonbridge [in a 1-0 loss on Tuesday], I thought, for the first 15 minutes, we were outstanding and then went flat.

“I’d rather, obviously, not concede the goal so early because you leave yourself a mountain to climb. But I’m pleased.

“Everyone beats everyone in this division, so any point in this league is a positive.”

Dunne, 33, calmly converted Whites’ penalty before the half-hour mark after referee Robert Claussen adjudged Luke Baptiste had been fouled.

Brundle, who had seen frontman Zidan Sutherland fail to convert a spot-kick at Longmead only four days earlier, said: “That’s a captain’s instinct.

“We missed one against Tonbridge, which I thought would have put us back into the game, but he [Dunne] is a very experienced player.

“If you [Sutherland] miss a penalty, come off them until your next one - or if you get a next one. Not all centre-forwards are penalty takers. We’ve seen that over the years.

“I’m delighted he stuck it away and he’s off the mark now. I thought, midfield-wise, we were good. I thought we looked a lot more solid, with Baptiste, and we won a lot more second balls.

“Like I said, we just gave ourselves a mountain to climb from the off. Overall, I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed. I would say I have got high standards and we didn’t hit all of them.

“But we’ll just move forward to next Saturday.”

Brundle hopes midfielder Iffy Allen will be fit for next weekend’s double-header after a hamstring problem as they host Worthing on Saturday and visit Dartford two days later.

But striker George Nikaj is due to have a knee injury he sustained against Tonbridge assessed.