Stevenage manager Alex Revell praised the tenacity of Harvey White as his side came away from Leyton Orient with a 3-2 victory.
The win at Brisbane Road sent the Hertfordshire side top of League One, albeit temporarily, in an entertaining fixture.
White was responsible for the Orient opener but was on hand to fire home the equaliser less than two minutes later, which left Revell praising the mettle of the midfielder.
He said: “That’s all you can ask for. When you make an error like that, you get punished but there’s no better way of bouncing back from that than doing what he did.
“That shows his character and how much he’s grown as a person – he can move on and forget about things like that.
“Both goals have come from our mistakes but we’ve gone a goal down away from home and we’ve won the game.
“Being hard to beat comes from real hard work. When players see rewards for that, it’s a lot easier to deliver information during a session.”
After Charlie Wellens hit the bar for Orient, the game sprung into life with two strikes in as many minutes.
The hosts went ahead through Aaron Connolly on 24 minutes when White lost his man, but he made amends with a shot from outside the box past Tommy Simkin.
Simkin almost gifted the visitors a goal right on half-time, when he let a Chem Campbell header slip out of his hands but was relieved to see the ball trickle off the post to safety.
The Orient shot-stopper was beaten by a Lewis Freestone header on 54 minutes to put Stevenage ahead and captain Carl Piergianni ultimately secured the points when he converted from a 61st-minute corner.
Dom Ballard was first to a rebound to make it a nervous finale for Stevenage but defeat left Orient head coach Richie Wellens annoyed at the manner in which all the goals against his side were conceded.
He said: “In the 10-minute spell where we let two goals in, we were naive. We’re a naive team at the moment.
“I thought we had some really good spells in the game but we conceded as soon as we scored – again, the signs of a naive team.
“But I also see some good signs as well. It’s frustrating because we can’t seem to piece together the same 90 minutes.
“For me the biggest disappointment is the first 15 minutes of the second half. Because we had a bit of confidence we started passing it about in front of people, when all we needed to do was get down the sides.
“We spoke about set-plays and that’s what they do. They’ve done that for three to four years, (former Boro manager) Steve Evans was very good for it.”
