John Swift said he was delighted to get his first Hawthorns goal and heaped praise on his teammates for their perseverance following Albion's exciting 5-2 win against Hull on Saturday.
The Baggies came out on top of a seven-goal thriller in the Black Country sunshine to earn their maiden 2022/23 Sky Bet Championship victory at the fifth attempt.
Swift’s sumptuous strike, which arrived at a crucial time during the game, was key to the triumph.
And the attacking midfielder admitted getting all three points was a relief, and hopes they can build on the showing over the next few weeks.
“It was good to get my first home league goal,” beamed John. “It took a bit of pressure off because we were only 1-0 up at the time.
“Grady (Diangana) did the hard work down the left, and I was a bit surprised myself with a left-footed strike like that! But no, I’m happy and it’s nice to finally score here.
“In all of the games bar one we’ve conceded first. You could see the confidence today after scoring the first goal, and as I said the second then just took the pressure off.
"The little touches and the passes, the confidence was there. We had more freedom to play our natural game.
“We want to perform like that every time. To score five every game would obviously be nice, but we know the Championship is tough and there are hard games coming.
“It’s just good to get that first win today. The pressure was on, everybody knew that. We wanted to get our first win in the first game of the season, and we’ve had to wait until the fifth league game.
“We’ve got the cup game next, and we want to win that and progress as far as we can, and then the next league game is massive. Hopefully we can go out on to the pitch and perform like that.
“We were a bit unlucky in the first few games but today just shows that if we keep getting in front of goal, putting the performances in and threatening in the final third then we’ll be dangerous.”
And Swift reserved a special mention for winger Diangana, who he believes has been back to his best this year.
“Grady has been unplayable since the start of the season,” added John.
“He’s a quality player and we need to just give him the ball as much as possible. Games like today where his confidence is flying – Conor (Townsend) was saying in the dressing room that he gives him the ball and lets him do what he wants to do.”
