Iron manager Nigel Adkins hailed his side's professionalism as they clinically saw off Crystal Palace 3-0 in the npower Championship at Glanford Park on Saturday.

Jonathan Forte's stylish brace in the later stages of the opening period did the damage, while Michael O'Connor added a second half penalty to clinch the game.

"Obviously there was the massive boost before the game of drawing Manchester United in the Carling Cup third round, but we had to focus on today's game.

"When we started off I felt Crystal Palace were the better side for the first half an hour.

"The substitution which saw Paddy McCarthy go off affected them more than us.

"They'd only just settled down and straight away Jonathan Forte went and scored a goal.

"We try and work on things from restarts in the game - i.e. throw-ins - and his first goal came about from one.

"He then produced a great individual finish for the second goal.

"That goal underlines the pace, power, tenacity and goalscoring ability he's got.

"All that was really pleasing and I felt we dominated the game in the second half and should have scored a lot more goals.

"You could see that with Sam Togwell's chance which he lifted over the crossbar after some great interlinking play.

"And then when Jonathan Forte was played through and needed some awareness to square the ball to Michael Collins but he fired over the bar.

"I felt the defining moment was the penalty. Jonathan Forte was on a hat-trick and wanted to take it but great credit because Michael O'Connor showed his professionalism by taking the penalty and scoring it, and Jonathan went and celebrated with him.

"If the scoreline had been different then Jonathan could have taken it, but Michael is our penalty taker so it was good professionalism from the group of players to win the game.

"Again, we got a clean sheet and it was a good display from an honest, hard-working group of players."

See much more from Nigel Adkins, Jonathan Forte and Sam Togwell on The Iron Player.