Matt Taylor admits he cannot fault his free-scoring Exeter side after they moved into the automatic promotion places courtesy of a 4-1 victory at Grimsby

A brace from Randell Williams did the bulk of the damage for the visitors at Blundell Park, with Ryan Bowman and Matt Jay also on target.

Luke Hendrie netted a first-half equaliser for Grimsby, but they were powerless to stop Exeter from recording a third straight win in all competitions – a sequence which has seen them score 13 goals.

On the back of a crushing victory against Colchester, plus their weekend FA Cup heroics at Gillingham, Exeter needed only 19 minutes to open the scoring.

Bowman picked up the pieces from a corner to slot home from close range, although Hendrie did level 10 minutes later after combining with Sean Scannell.

As the clock ticked towards half-time, Williams took centre stage with a quickfire double, following up his neat left-footed finish with a clever back-heel.

Genuine chances were few and far between upon the restart, but there was enough time for Jay to seal another clinical display from the Grecians.

Taylor said: “We were convincing 4-1 winners. We threatened the goal often in the first half and then got our rewards with the goals.

“They had a threat about them as well, so we were also really pleased to keep it at one from the first half.

“It was a professional display. We used the ball well and kept them at arm’s length.

“Credit to them. Every team is entitled to their spell in a game. We had to ride that little bit of a storm, without them creating too many chances.

“It was disappointing to concede, because we want more clean sheets. But I can’t fault what this group of players are doing at the minute.

“That’s three big wins for us in terms of scorelines, but also three wins that are getting our confidence boosted and with goals being converted.

“We’ve not traditionally scored enough goals in my time as manager, but we are hitting the back of the net regularly at the moment.”

Grimsby manager Ian Holloway said: “It was a bit of a strange one.

“There was lots of good stuff from us, we showed good resilience to come back and score a fantastic goal, and then the manner of the two that put us behind just before half-time was slightly annoying to say the least.

“It looked very easy, and that’s unlike us normally. I think we’ve lost a little bit of confidence, they tried to come back and no-one gave up, and because of the timing of the two goals just before half-time, it knocked a little bit of stuffing out of us.”