With 88 minutes on the clock, Wanderers leading 1-0 and Jamie Cureton bearing down on goal at Victoria Road on Saturday afternoon, Paul Hayes feared the worst.

The Wycombe captain could only watch on as Cureton, a man who has over 250 career goals to his name, bought a long ball down expertly and raced into the box.

With only Matt Ingram to beat it seemed odds on that the striker would find the net, as he so often does, and deny Wanderers all three points, but, to the astonishment of the locals, he dragged his shot wide of the post.

“Your heart is in your mouth, especially with the career that Jamie’s had he normally buries that,” said Hayes.

“Maybe it’s that sort of thing, that luck on your side when you’re at the top. I know if you’re down the bottom that’s going in the back of the net.

“They had one chance in the second half and Jamie probably thinks he should have scored that. We dug deep and as a team we did the best we could, and we got our rewards.”

The Chairboys’ attacking play was at its most fluent in the first half against Luton on Tuesday night, but in the first 45 minutes in east London they struggled to get out of second gear.

An improvement after the break followed and their endeavour was eventually rewarded when Aaron Pierre’s goal sealed an eighth game unbeaten.

Hayes said: “The vital bit is that we haven’t really played very well today. We had patches where we played well but on the whole know we can play better than that. To not play particularly well and get three points shows a great team.

“From day one we’ve always had a good team spirit, a good morale and I think that is what is getting us a lot of points and wins.

“If the team sticks together through the good and the bad you know that you’re going to come out better for it.”

With Bury’s match postponed, victory against Daggers moves Blues seven points clear of the Shakers.

And having closed the gap to league leaders Burton to just two points, by virtue of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s team not playing until Monday, Wanderers have their fate very much in their own hands with seven League Two games left.

“We’re moving along nicely. We know the more games we win the more chance we have of getting promoted,” said the Blues captain.

“Let’s take one step at a time. Our first step was to stay up, we’ve gained that, then it was the play-offs and now we’re looking to get in the top three.

“Once we can get the vital automatic place then we can look for the title, but that’s for the future.”