Practice made perfect for Joe

The left back steered his shot over the wall and past Bobby Olejnik for the opener in the 2-0 win after Wanderers had been under incessant pressure.

And afterwards he revealed the training ground trick which helped turn him into a dead ball king.

He said: “There’s a few of us who stay out after training most days practising free kicks. We put the mannequins out and practice against a wall that is only eight yards away (two yards closer) than normal and that really helps us to get it right on the day.

“There’s a good few of us who can really take a good free kick and thankfully it was my turn to get one and it paid off.

“We’d had a good session a couple of days before, there was five or six of us at it and there was a great standard between all of us.”

And he revealed how he had to fend off team-mate Sido Jombati to take the free kick.

He said: “Sido ran over wanting it but I said ‘no this one is mine’. If I could take one anywhere that’s one position where I’d like to put it down.”

The goal, which was the first Exeter had conceded at home, dug Wycombe out of a hole and six minutes later they doubled their lead with a breakaway goal from Garry Thompson.

Jacobson said: “It’s a massive win against a team who will probably be in or around the play-offs at the end of the season.  We didn’t start well, we had been under the cosh, but it shows the character we’ve got that even though we weren’t playing well we didn’t let them go in front.

“A lot of teams will look at this and our draw at Orient a week before and see that we’ve taken four points from two very tough games and think ‘wow that’s impressive.’

“I’m sure people are saying we are genuine title contenders now but it’s still really early in the season and we’re not going to get carried away because there’s a lot of tough games coming up.

“We are happy where we are and enjoying it but the gaffer will never let us get carried away with anything, good or bad.”