Second-half goals from Taylor Richards and Warren O’Hora means Albion have all but secured a safe passage out of the group, but Rusk encouraged his side not to rest on their laurels heading into the Bonfire Night clash at Leyton Orient next month.
He said, “I am very happy, as I thought it was a disciplined performance and we had moments of quality too.
“I didn’t think we were troubled too much in the game and we had a lot of players with experience in the competition, so they knew what they had to do, and by and large, it was a good team performance.
“It’s a feather in the players’ caps to be almost through with a game to go. We’ve got another game in the group though, which we want to perform well in. The focus will be on ensuring we finish the group stages very well, but you have to give the players a lot of credit for what has been achieved so far.”
Rusk highlighted the need for his team to find a cutting edge in front of goal and says there is still room for improvement in the attacking area of the pitch.
“We spoke in the last few weeks about being clinical in the games. I thought we got into a lot of good areas in the first half, but we weren’t quite as effective and clinical as we would’ve liked to have been.
“We spoke about that at half-time, but we felt that if we kept creating chances, we would get a goal, and that’s the way it panned out.”
Albion will have to wait another 18 days until their next game against Manchester City on 19th October, and the under-23 coach admits he would have liked another match to come round sooner following the emphatic 4-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur last Friday and tonight’s impressive victory.
“When you have international breaks in the first three months of the season, they can either come at good or bad times for you, depending on the context of your season.
“At the moment, the boys want the games to keep coming following two good results and two good performances, so it’s about making sure we build on that momentum and take it into the next league game against Manchester City.”