CONFERENCE: SHARP-SHOOTING DAGGERS TURN ETON RIFLES

Dagenham & Redbridge continue to lead the way in the Nationwide Conference after extending their winning start to the season with a 3-1 win over Burton Albion at Eton Park.

In a weekend that saw his father Brian back in the headlines, thanks to Arsenal's incredible record-equalling efforts in the Premiership, Albion boss Nigel Clough also had to witness the continuation of an unbeaten sequence that has secured The Daggers' place atop the table.

Three wins from three this season have shown that the Essex side have the potential to make a serious challenge for promotion in 2004/05, having previously come close to making the step up to the Football League before a disappointing campaign last year.

With both Aldershot and Accrington Stanley losing at the weekend, Dagenham are the only team to have maintained a perfect start, thanks in part to the fact that manager John Still was able to name an unchanged starting line-up once more.

John Taylor got things underway for The Daggers at Eton Park as he beat namesake Martin Taylor in the Burton goal within five minutes, and the visitors doubled their advantage ten minutes into the second half through Mark Janney, who volleyed home his second goal of the season.

Despite the efforts of the Burton player-boss, who pulled one back for the home side, Cloughie junior could not prevent John Still's team from sealing the three points, as substitute Craig Mackail-Smith crashed in a third from 25 yards.

Dagenham played out the last ten minutes with ten men after Ashley Vickers was dismissed for his second bookable offence, but they held on to make it nine points from a possible nine, and now look ahead to next Saturday's home game against Woking.

Daggers boss John Still was delighted with the victory, and with his team's form so far, as he stated on the club's official website: "If you were a musician they call this the difficult second album. If you've done well with your first, your second is always tougher.

'I think in football if you've had two wins in your opening games then the third game, whoever you play, is your toughest. I had these [Burton Albion] watched the other night and they battered Leigh. I was under no illusions about how tough the game today was going to be.

"They took a chance when they went 3-5-2. Three midfield players getting on really put us under pressure because teams don't normally do that. They paid the price for that because we broke away and scored each time and Glen could have scored the fourth. That's the chance they took, it could have worked for them because they could have scored goals. But in the second half, particularly our back four, we were superb particularly the goalkeeper.

'We couldn't get our attacking game going but that was all credit to them. Our organisation, which we've worked very hard on and our discipline were pluses for us. Our quality wasn't good today for too long. Every now and again we came up with a bit of quality and we did for the goals but our general quality wasn't up to what we've done so far.

'Resilience is a much needed quality. We showed great resilience. I said to the players before, when you look back at the end of the season and we've had a great season; we played really well ten times, we've been good ten times, we've been very professional ten times and we've battled and shown all the other qualities the other times. Today was a battling performance and however you play, we've scored three goals away from home and created two very good chances which we should have scored. For an away team to do that takes some doing and you can't do that without resilience.

'Sometimes you don't get the rub of the ball and we've got to get tight and we've got to be solid. The only thing that pleased me about their goal was that he struck the ball from a long way out, a great strike. When they have been able to break down our defence Robbo was at his best. We've travelled midweek and we've travelled today and we've scored seven goals. I'm under no illusions; we've played teams so far who aren't quite ready and it takes sides six games to get settled down.

'With Ash being sent off, I'll have to make changes in the next game. I think in his position you've got to tackle and he hasn't flown in or anything and just gone in for a couple of sliding tackles but that's football. Ash has got to learn to stand on his feet and we'll be working on that. But his misfortune will be someone else's opportunity next week."