Centre back Jake Wright believes Saturday’s match at Burton was a good pointer to how difficult League Two will be for Oxford United this season, and especially for the strikers.

It is a significant step-up, especially for any forward coming up against the likes of the Brewers’ big centre half Darren Moore, as James Constable found to his cost.

Veteran 36-year-old Moore may not be the quickest any more, but he didn’t let Constable – United’s 26-goal top scorer last season – get past him once.

The match saw defences on top of forwards in general, and Wright was outstanding for the U’s in the 0-0 draw, though Simon Heslop wasn’t far behind as he ran the show at times in the second half.

“I thought first half was even, second half we shaded it with our football,” said Wright, who joined Oxford United permanently in the summer from Brighton after appearing for them on loan from the Seagulls last season.

“Neither club had clear-cut chances, but we can be happy with our return, I think,” he said.

“In this league you get less chances, and if you give teams chances they punish you.

“So you’ve got to concentrate longer, for 95 minutes, and when you get one chance, you put it away.”

Wright agreed that Burton’s main centre half also gave a good demonstration of defending.

“Moore’s massive, but he’s also in quite good condition for his age.

“I was at Bradford when he was there, he’s a very good player with lots of experience.

“Coming away to places like this we try to make sure we don’t concede. And if we get a goal, we get a goal.

“The manager said to us when we got back in the dressing room that we were unlucky, we could have finished with a win, but to get a draw is a good result.”

Manager Chris Wilder felt his team were naive at times near the end in the way they piled players forward in search of a winner.

“At times it was a little bit hairy-scary and at times we were a little bit naive,” he said.

“As I said to the players, we’ve got to learn quick because on another day they might have punished us with our defensive lapses.

“But Burton scored a hell of a lot of goals last season and have brought in some good players.

“We’ve also got to get the balance right.

“Late on in the game, we’re all steaming forward and it was like schoolboy or playground football at times.

“I’m thinking ‘they’re pretty useful on the break’. But I don’t want to take that enthusiasm away from them, so I can’t really castigate them.

“We left ourselves a little bit wide open, hopefully we can maybe learn our lessons from that in the future.”