James ‘Beano’ Constable admitted that his first goal since December had seemed like an eternity in coming.

Oxford United’s leading scorer reached double figures for the season with a fine strike with ten minutes remaining to give his side a 2-1 victory over Dagenham at the Kassam Stadium on Tuesday night.

It looked as though Chris Wilder’s men might have again failed to beat a struggling team on their home pitch when Mark Arber headed home with 18 minutes left to cancel out Oli Johnson’s first goal for United six minutes after half-time.

But substitute Mehdi Kerrouche, who is on loan at Oxford from Swindon, produced some great link-up play with Johnson to free Constable, and his strike at the near post proved the match-winner.

And Constable, whose last goal came in the 2-0 win at AFC Wimbledon on Boxing Day, could not hide his delight at getting off the mark for 2012.

“It’s been a while,” he said. “Far too long in fact.

“It’s been a difficult situation with not having a game for more than two weeks, but the three points was the biggest thing today.

“But it is really nice to get back on the scoresheet again and it was particularly pleasing to get the goal as the first shot I had went out for a throw-in and I think the linesman had to duck!

“Hopefully now I can go on a little run and get some more.”

Wilder added: “I have stood talking to you after about a dozen games this season saying we played really well, but when we have not won the game.

“But tonight the performance wasn’t great, but we got the three points, which was the most important thing.

“We had a lot of new faces playing and it will take time for them to bed in and find their feet, but there were some really promising signs.

“We know we need to win more matches, and that is a big result for us.”

Because of their injury problems, United fielded four new faces – Scott Rendell and Mark Wilson starting the game, with Kerrouche and Lee Holmes – who was only signed on loan from Southampton earlier in the day – both coming on as substitutes.