It was smiles all round at Dagenham and Redbridge following a comprehensive victory over Lincoln City. The Daggers were able to shrug off of the loss of Solomon Taiwo to Cardiff City and still maintained their early season momentum with the victory leaping them to the summit of League Two. Academy coach Wayne Burnett was one of those happy men.
"When you lose good players it can be sometimes be very difficult but we've got some real good players at this football club and I thought our performance today was exceptional. We really got at them, we really attacked them and we scored three goals and at the end it maybe could have been more."
Of course the main beneficiary of Taiwo's move was Jon Nurse, who came in on the left hand side of midfield and scored twice to take his tally to three so far this season.
"Everyone knows what a good player Jon Nurse is. He's come in and he's looking to hold a place down now. He was exceptional today. He worked incredibly hard. He played wide but he got in little positions and he was difficult to pick up. He was unlucky not to get a hat-trick today but I'm delighted for him."
Nurse's second goal came from a corner and whilst the Daggers are prolific in winning corner kicks, there has been some criticism that they don't take enough advantage of their set pieces. Burnett however was quick to dispel that notion.
"Goals don't always come direct from a corner. Sometimes its headed out and from a rebound, before you know it, its in the back of the net. Goals can result from corners, in the second phase of play. We'll take them however we can get them."
Whilst Nurse quite rightly took the plaudits at the end of the game, Burnett was also keen to praise the whole side for their efforts.
"Everyone worked tirelessly today, it was an exceptional performance. I actually thought we played better than we did against Shrewsbury. All over the pitch, defensively, we looked very tough to break down; in midfield we worked really hard and going forward at times we looked like we could score at will. It's very promising. The work rate, the team ethic and the cohesion in the team looks very good at the moment.
"Today's performance was a real pleasing one for everyone, not only for the players but also for the staff because everything we worked on in training seem to come to fruition today."
