Alfie Beestin scored his third goal of the season in the 79th minute to secure an important victory for the Iron, and their fifth in seven games.
Cox told iFollow Iron: "We’ve come to the top of the league team and we’ve got absolutely battered, to be honest with you. They kept the possession, they worked us hard and they created chances in the first half.
“They had a couple of good chances to go 1-0 up, but we stuck at it and we put in a performance away from home where we dug deep, counter-attacked and went 1-0 up by luck. You deserve a bit of luck now and then; we've deserved some as we’ve had some decisions against us.
“We’ve managed to sneak one in but I must say they are an excellent footballing side, by far the best in the league, and I hope they keep playing that way because it’s good to see.”
Speaking about the team’s performance, he said: “It’s a team game but we’ve had a couple of injuries, so George Taft and Ryan Loft missed the game. JB (Jacob Bedeau) had to come off, and hopefully that's cramp and not a calf strain. Then Dev (Green) came off too and we end up putting people in different positions. We’re just down to the bare bones at the minute but we have to stick in there and show fighting spirit for the football club - I think that’s what we’ve done.”
Results went the Iron's way in the division on Tuesday night but Cox is choosing to focus on United and not on the teams around them in the table, he said: “I’m not worried about anybody else, it’s what we do and sometimes when we don’t play well it's about sticking together, as you can tell at the moment there’s a team spirit there even though we’ve had two defeats and we came here against the top of the league team trying to get the points, which we did.”
Commenting on the Beestin goal and the match as a whole, the manager said: “It’s the only chance we had but at the end of the day we hit the target. Early on they had a couple of chances which they missed and our keeper made a save or two as well.
“I don’t think they had many chances in the second half. In the second half, we got ourselves organised and were better defensively and did a good job."
Talking about Bedeau and Green coming off in the game, Cox said: “We’re not sure with JB as it’s too early to tell but we’ve got a few boys who are struggling; that’s the way it is and we’ve just got to get on with it. We must keep going because it is going to be hard and it’s not an easy league, some of these boys have never played this many games in this league and it’s just about fighting our way through.
“The quality will show, we’ve got some good players and we just have to relax a bit on the ball."
Looking ahead to Saturday’s game away at Salford City (3pm kick-off), Cox said: “We’re away at Salford next, we’ve had some hard fixtures recently, and then we go away there. It’s going to be difficult but we’ve got to carry on. Everyone’s going to be as tired as us. We need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and hopefully a good win away from home will set us up for another three points on Saturday.”
See much more from Neil Cox on iFollow Iron.
