Braintree Town are just 90 minutes away from playing in the Nationwide Conference.

Iron won their Conference South play-off final on Saturday after prevailing in a dramatic penalty shoot-out against Havant and Waterlooville.

The two sides could not be separated after the semi-final finished 2-2 on aggregate.

Both legs finished as 1-1 draws - and not even extra-time could produce a winner at Cressing Road.

So the contest went to penalties and Iron converted all four of their spot-kicks to spark jubilant scenes and book their place in Sunday's play-off final against Salisbury City at Stevenage Borough's Broadhall Way ground, for the right to play in next season's Conference National.

With the semi-final delicately balanced at 1-1 from the first leg, another closely-contested and tense encounter ensued.

It looked as though Braintree had booked their place in the final when James Hawes decisively fired in, 14 minutes before the end of normal time.

But when Iron skipper Bradley Quinton was adjudged to have fouled Havant's Tony Taggart in the area with just two minutes remaining, a penalty was awarded and Jamie Collins converted to send the game into extra-time.

An additional 30 minutes could not part the teams but Braintree enjoyed a 100-per-cent record in the subsequent shoot-out to win 4-2 on spot-kicks and seal their place in the final, in front of a crowd of more than 1,500.

Iron manager George Borg admitted he feared for his side's chances when the semi-final went to penalties.

He said: "I'm going to have to pinch myself and watch the penalties again on DVD because I can't believe how well we took them.

"I had already thrown the towel in then because our penalty takers have been absolutely woeful.

"I felt for our boys when we conceded the penalty with two minutes to go but they picked themselves up.

"Havant were very unlucky and had a couple of great chances which they didn't take so it went to the lottery of penalties."

The Hawks will look back on an incident in the third minute which might have changed the nature of the contest.

Rocky Baptiste, the division's leading goalscorer, was denied by a fine reflex save by Braintree keeper Nicky Morgan and Jamie Cook struck the foot of the post with the rebound.

But Braintree are made of strong stuff and limited the visitors to few chances, in what was a tense and at times bad-tempered affair.

That will not worry Iron though, who now have the chance to achieve an amazing second successive promotion.