The east London side named a strong team against the Isthmian North outfit, who play in step 8 of the footballing pyramid, but were frustrated throughout the match by their own lack of quality, as well as the hosts’ well-structured set-up.
Brown, who was in charge of the team for the fixture spoke of his disappointment at the full-time whistle despite victory.
“I don’t think the performance was at the level that we expect as staff. The manager (Peter Taylor) was here watching in the stands and I think he would have every right to be disappointed with what he saw.
“We’ve come to expect better levels of performance from the boys to be honest. I know these games are tricky because of the environment that the players come into, but I would have liked us to apply ourselves better than we did tonight.”
Missed Opportunities
Reece Grant fired home from close range within five minutes of the contest at Lower Road, but the away side failed to add to their solitary goal, despite plenty of opportunities in the opening 45 minutes to do so.
“We weren’t clinical in front of goal,” Brown explained. “We took too many touches in the final third, we slowed it down too much at times and we looked for the more difficult option rather than the glaringly obvious one.
Some of our shooting from in and around the box wasn’t of the standard that we’d expect to see.”
The 40-year-old coach has been with the Daggers since November 2018, having previously managed Heybridge Swifts, where he oversaw the part-timers to the final of the competition back in 2016, beating his current employers along the way.
Tricky Tie
“This tie was always going to be a banana skin. I’ve been in this scenario as a manager, I’ve been in that dressing room where you’re playing Dagenham & Redbridge and it really matters to you.
I think that we all need to learn from tonight, teams aren’t going to roll over for us in this competition. They really want that scalp of beating one of only three full-time teams in the competition.”
Back In Contention
Mitch Brundle and Chike Kandi made their long-awaited return from injuries in the win. Former Dover Captain Brundle, played the full 90 minutes, with Kandi coming on at half-time in the contest.
“There were positives to take from the game, Mitch Brundle played 90 minutes. He’s only just come back so we weren’t expecting him to, but he came through it which is a positive for us. Chike Kandi got 45 minutes on his return as well.
I’m not saying all this just to be negative, it’s a cup game and we’ve won the match and got some important minutes in for players coming back from injury.’’
Praise was also given to the hosts, who frustrated the professional outfit for the majority of the match, and even looked like snatching an equaliser late on.
“When you come to these places and you know that they’re going to sit deep, the one thing you want to do is get a goal early so that they have to come out of their shape.
“To their credit, Hullbridge didn’t really come out of their shape, they remained disciplined and took the game right to the wire. Their manager Darren Manning can be really pleased with his side’s performance, they gave a great account of themselves,” declared Brown.
The Daggers will be looking for a slightly more inspiring performance as they take on Carshalton Athletic on Saturday in the FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round.
Images used with kind permission of Dagenham & Redbridge F.C.
