GARY Rowett was satisfied with a point at Dagenham & Redbridge which kept his Burton Albion side in the League Two top three.
The Brewers drew 1-1 at a rain-swept Victoria Road on Saturday to make it four points from their travels in a week following a 2-1 win at Aldershot Town.
They took the lead through Lee Bell just after the half-hour before being pegged back by Josh Scott shortly after the break.
A win against the Daggers would have kept Albion second, but with Port Vale ending a five-match winless streak at York City, the Brewers dropped a place to third.
“I don’t think you can ever be arrogant enough to turn your nose up at a point at Dagenham, it’s always a difficult place to come,” said Rowett.
“We spoke before the two (away) games and (assistant manager) Kev Summerfield said if we could win one of the two games we’d be quite pleased with that.
“It’s always the case that when you win the first one, you’re then disappointed if you don’t win the second, especially to be 1-0 up and reasonably comfortable in the first half.
“But we’ll take that point – it’s four points from two games and if we can replicate our home form in the next two games then that’ll turn out to be two very good away performances.”
The Brewers weathered what Dagenham threw at them in the first half before taking the lead through Bell’s tidy strike – but the Daggers came on strong after half-time and equalised soon after.
Late on, Albion could have nicked it as their fitness levels again came to the fore on a heavy pitch.
“Dagenham had a little bit more edge in the second half, had a little bit more desire to keep the ball alive in our half and we struggled to get out,” said Rowett.
“I felt as though we didn’t quite chase the ball well enough in terms of when we cleared it we didn’t keep the ball alive to allow us to get up the pitch.
“It kept coming back at us and we ended up camped in for about 10 or 15 minutes.
“We said once they scored, you then feel once or twice coming here it’s been get the tin hats on for the last half-hour, you’re going to have a long game.
“But we actually changed that around and got more of the ball and it was them in the end that were quite pleased with the point.”
Jacques Maghoma passed a late fitness test to play on Saturday, but striker Michael Symes – who won the match at Aldershot with a cracking volley – was ruled out with a groin problem and will now rest it ahead of the weekend’s clash with Wycombe Wanderers.
“We didn’t train him yesterday,” said Rowett. “He’s been a little bit stiff and I’ve seen him holding his groin and his hip a little bit in recent weeks.
“We’ve kind of ignored it because he’s been doing so well.
“Yesterday he came in and said he felt if he didn’t train he’d give himself a better chance.
“The problem was we had Alex MacDonald ill on the way down, Anthony O’Connor was ill, Stuart Tomlinson was ill and I just felt if I started someone who was half-fit there was a fair chance we might have to make changes early in the game and lose the game that way, which we didn’t want.
“We decided to leave him out and in the week he’ll have rest and hopefully we’ll see him fine for the rest of the campaign.”
