New assistant manager Darren Patterson has made an immediate impact at Oxford United by getting the players to be more ruthless at set-pieces.

Boss Jim Smith and veteran midfielder Chris Hargreaves both acknowledged the part the new first-team coach played in Monday's exciting 4-1 win over Weymouth.

Chris Zebroski and Barry Quinn headed in corners and Marvin Robinson nodded in a long throw-in from Matt Day - all moves coming straight from the training ground.

But it wasn't all set-play joy - because Weymouth also got their goal from a corner that United should have defended better.

Hargreaves, who also got on the scoresheet, said: "It's incredible that we scored four headers - unheard of really - but Weymouth looked terrible at set-pieces.

"It's something we worked on in the week, attacking the ball in areas, and it paid off. All the hard work came good.

"We worked with Darren on set-pieces because they're important.

"We conceded under pressure and that was a set-piece, but we looked like scoring with every one.

"Sometimes you go up for corners and you're just a body, aren't you?

"Whereas we've tried to go in this week thinking 'right - go and get your head on the ball', which was what we did.

"You don't score by letting the ball just land on your head - you've got to attack it."

Manager Jim Smith acknowledged Patterson's input.

"We've changed the corners with Darren coming in," he said. "Nothing too complicated . . . just get as good a delivery in as you can and on Saturday at Northwich and against Weymouth we did.

"We should have scored goals off the corners at Northwich, and we did against Weymouth. There should have been a couple more as well, but that's very important, and very pleasing."

Hargreaves also scored in the 1-1 draw at Weymouth earlier this season.

And in both Easter games, the fiercely-competitive midfielder had scoring opportunities in the box.

He said: "I suppose I'm better known as a tackler and a battler, and Martin (Foster) and Danny (Rose) are more ball players.

"But if you play in that sitting role, which I did, you get on the ball more.

"That's something that Darren's talked about this week, trying to get in the holes, break things up and then you end up getting more time on the ball. I'm just pleased to be playing."