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Dogged Dagenham please Burnett

Image: Wayne Burnett: Pleased with his players

Wayne Burnett praised the attitude of his Dagenham and Redbridge side after their draw at Cheltenham.

Substitute Joe Hanks rescued a point for the Robins late on, cancelling out Jamie Cureton's opener for the visitors, who ended a run of three straight defeats. "I have never questioned the lads' work ethic and this group give you everything they have and I can't fault them for that," Burnett said. "We rode our luck a little, but when you come to Cheltenham you are pleased with a point. Would I have taken it before the game? Probably. "But scoring goals is what Jamie Cureton does and he has 262 career goals now I believe. "He wants to get to 300 and I've had to tell him goals in training don't count! But he's a natural scorer and he may be 39 now, but doesn't play like it. People want to be around him and he is infectious. "I also thought Joss Labadie came in and worked incredibly hard and while we haven't played great, sometimes you need that bit of luck, which we had. "We have played more football, more fluid, better possession and ball retention for much of this season, but the fans have clapped us off." Cheltenham boss Mark Yates admitted it was a big relief to end a three-match run without scoring. "I am pleased for the team and the supporters, who stuck with us and we really needed to get that goal," he said. "We had numerous chances, with John Marquis a real threat every time he got into the box. We hit the bar twice and their keeper has made a few saves. "It was frustrating to concede in the way that we did, but their plan was to sit and defend and it was an excellent strike from Jamie Cureton. "The key is the tempo we started with, which was excellent. After they scored for the last 25 minutes we were also decent, but the middle of the game wasn't as good. "We know what we need to do to win games, but we have come off what we do best and we allow teams to get something we shouldn't . "I changed the formation from 3-5-2 to 4-1-3-2 because Steve Elliott wasn't fit and we wanted to play two strikers. It didn't work as well as I wanted, but there were some good bits."

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