Iron joint caretaker manager Andy Dawson has expressed his delight following the 3-0 victory against Colchester United on Saturday afternoon.
Second half goals from the returning Tom Hopper and a Paddy Madden double secured victory and all three points for United.Keen to heap praise on the squad post-match, Dawson told The Iron PlayerHD: “We discussed what we wanted the players to do and gave them confidence to go out and show their ability.
“The first half wasn’t as neat and tidy as we’d have liked but we were still in the game at half time thanks to some solid play from the defence.
“In the second half, they came out and executed exactly what we tried to do all week and looked comfortable in the end.
“Sometimes you have to just stay in the game and after managing to do that, the first goal made a real difference.
“They relaxed, passed the ball, moved it, did what we asked of them and fully deserved what they got in the end.”
The first goal arrived following excellent initial play from Conor Townsend down the left flank, with Hopper finding the net on his first appearance since a long injury lay off.
Quick to applaud all involved in the win, Dawson believes the foundations were set up by a hard working display from a defensive point of view.
“Both of them (Townsend and Hopper) did really well as did the rest of the team so it’s unfair just to talk about those two,” he added.
“Conor has come in, he’s been raring to go and hasn’t let anybody down by putting a Man of the Match performance in.
“The squad have stuck together all week, listened to what we’ve had to say to them and, especially in the second half, done exactly what we knew they were capable of.
“You defend from the front and every one of them did that. Some of the goals came from that pressing and hard work in winning it back.
“It’s unfair to talk about the back four because you defend as a team and they did that today.”
Another positive to come out of the afternoon’s work were two more strikes to Irishman Madden’s seasonal tally.
Pleased to see him back on the scoresheet, Dawson stressed the importance of building on the U’s success going forward.
He continued: “We know that Paddy goes on these runs where he’s in and out of scoring but he’s a goal scorer and just always seems to be in the right place at the right time.
“We spoke about giving him a bit of freedom and not restricting him and at times we saw him on the left, on the right and then in the centre and eventually got our rewards.
“We’ll watch the game back on Monday and talk about things we can improve on, things we did well.
“We’ll keep demanding more and fighting to become better and the players will do that because they’re a group of good professionals.”
See much more from Andy Dawson, Paddy Madden and Tom Hopper on The Iron PlayerHD.
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