Richie Wellens was happy to see his Leyton Orient side make the game ugly as the League Two leaders ground out a 1-0 win at home to Doncaster.
Theo Archibald’s superb dipping volley from long range earned Orient their first win in four matches.
It was also the first goal the hosts had scored in four games but was still enough to extend their lead at the top of the table to five points.
Wellens said: “I felt we scrapped, we made it ugly and I said to the players I want us to be physical and that’s where we are at the moment, but ultimately we did win the game with a moment of quality.”
Orient began the game without their regular centre-half pairing of Omar Beckles, who was suspended, and the injured Dan Happe, but replacements Jordan Brown and Adam Thompson proved admirable stand-ins.
Doncaster had chances in the first half, Kyle Hurst having an effort blocked by Brown and George Miller screwing an excellent chance wide.
But the hosts reorganised at the break and stepped up the pressure.
Doncaster goalkeeper Jonathan Mitchell clawed away a 20-yard drive from Tom James and then denied substitute Ruel Sotiriou before Archibald conjured the winner after 68 minutes.
Collecting a clearance after a long throw by James, Archibald controlled the ball on his chest before sending a dipping volley over the head of Mitchell and into the net from 30 yards.
“We had one day to train going into this with the lack of bodies and I have to be honest training wasn’t great,” Wellens added.
“I will take the blame for the first-half performance, because I felt we were off it. I should have changed shape and we ended up going with a back two, because I didn’t want to change my midfielders, who were outstanding, and I didn’t want to change my forward three.
“It was clear what we were doing second half and I think, despite them not having many shots, they still caused us a few problems.
“I am normally very performance orientated, but today I just said to the players, ‘Listen, I don’t care how we play, get the ball in good areas and put it on them as we want a result’.”
Doncaster manager Danny Schofield was disappointed at the manner of Archibald’s goal.
“I think we could have done things a lot better to prevent the goal and it shouldn’t happen,” he said.
“We defended our box very well, but to concede the goal in the manner we did was disappointing.
“I thought first half there was lots of positives to our performance and we implemented the way I wanted us to play the game by causing Leyton Orient lots of problems and creating chances, but ultimately no shots on target which was disappointing.
“Second half I thought they showed credit to us by changing it by going more man for man and we had a lot of pressure early in that second half and withstood lots of it.
“But I am disappointed we didn’t manage the game by getting the ball much higher up the pitch which meant it was attack after attack.
“I still feel we need to create better chances and more dynamic movements in the final third.
“The overall application was fantastic, though, and I saw the players fighting for each other which is all I can ask for.”
