Brentford striker Nathan Elder said he was very pleased to have notched the opening goal of The Bees home victory over Dagenham and Redbridge.

Elder headed home an Adam Newton cross to open the scoring midway through the first half and said it was an area of his game he had been working on.

He was also quick to praise the quality of the ball in from his captain.

"It was a pin-point cross," said Elder. "Those ones are put on a plate, you can't argue with the quality of that.

"People assume that because of my height I should do it [score lots of headed goals], but I have been working on it.

"I'm very pleased indeed, all my family were here today."

Elder explained The Bees went out to attack Dagenham from the off and "get into them", which helped them build a 2-0 half time lead and he said the players showed real character to hold onto the points after Kevin O'Connor was sent off with 13 minutes remaining.

"Most teams in League Two at that point would have laid down and thought 'they will score, that's it', but we carried on."

Captain Newton was delighted with the win and said the players wanted to extend their unbeaten run as long as they could.

He said Brentford has started slowly but once they got into their stride they took control.

"I thought in the first 20 minutes we were under the cosh, we didn't get going," said Newton.

"The goal settled us down and for the rest of the first half we had chances.

"We were pretty happy at half time.

"We knew Dagenham would come out explosive, it's always what happens.

"When a team is two up it is not an easy score but we have a good team spirit and we got the three points."

Newton said playing with ten men for the latter stages was a test of character, which Brentford passed.

"It shows that for a young team we have a will to win and a desire to stay strong," he added.