Exeter boss Matt Taylor praised his side for a “complete performance” as they earned a first win on their travels in style with a 4-0 success at Scunthorpe

A brace from skipper Matt Jay either side of the break put the Grecians in command before Josh Key and Timothee Dieng capitalised on more hesitant home defending to wrap up a comfortable victory.

“I’d say it was probably a complete performance from us as a collective unit – our mindset was improved today and we wanted to do the right things,” Taylor said.

“Goals change games and while we had to wait a little while for the first one, the one just after half-time gave us a real boost and put the opposition on the back foot which allowed us to back it up with a couple more.

“It was comfortable at the end – and that’s no disrespect to Scunthorpe, we made it comfortable.

“We’ve got to understand where we’re trying to get to as a team and we’re nowhere near there as yet, but stood here I felt I had a stronger bench behind me.

“For whatever reason, even though we’re six or seven games in, we’re still finding our rhythm. That sounds strange when you’ve won a game like this, but it’s what we’re working towards.

“We won’t find it for the next few weeks but as a manager you have a plan when you’re putting a team together and that performance was closer to where I want us to be.”

Exeter had to wait until the 41st minute to break the deadlock when Jay ghosted in to head home from Jevani Brown’s lofted pass, but never looked back once in front.

Jay’s second came just 18 seconds into the second half as the Grecians attacked straight from the kick-off, courtesy of another Brown assist, with Key and Dieng converting from close range in the 57th and 75th minutes respectively from balls into the box from out wide.

Scunthorpe assistant boss Mark Lillis – looking after the team with manager Neil Cox missing due to personal reasons – branded his side’s second-half performance as “unacceptable”.

He said: “We came in at half-time thinking we had a chance, but to concede after just 20 seconds is not good enough.

“Three of their midfield players scored goals after we’d worked on how they would break in training.

“Exeter deserved their win and it could have been by more. I know we’ve got some young lads, but they’ve got to stand up and be counted.

“We can’t just look at it and say we’ll move on, we’ve got to work out why it happened so that it doesn’t happen again.

“The players know we’re not happy and that they have to look in the mirror. They’ve got to handle League Two, and some today didn’t.”