STANLEY boss John Coleman joked he should have seen Saturday’s defeat coming - due to his birthday jinx.

The Reds looked set to maintain their 100 per cent record since Coleman’s return as they led 1-0 at half-time.

But Dagenham & Redbridge hit back to win 2-1 and ruin Coleman’s 52nd birthday on Sunday.

“We’ll probably never get a better opportunity to win a home game than being 1-0 up at half-time and being in total control,” he said.

“To relinquish that control for 15 minutes - and that ultimately cost us the game - it’s hard to act. Maybe I should have expected it because I never seem to have a happy birthday - ever since I was a kid!”

“But all credit to Dagenham,” Coleman added. “They came back out and had a good 15-minute spell.

“It’s not often that you win a game in a 15-minute spell but they did today. We’ve got to learn from it.

“We did enough to win it. I don’t think even the staunchest Dagenham fan could say otherwise.

“But they took their chances and we didn’t. If you rewind to the previous home game, Plymouth probably deserved to beat us. We rode our luck against Plymouth and the footballing gods were against us today.”

Dagenham’s goals were almost carbon copies, both scored by substitute Ade Yusuff.

““I think we were better than we were against Plymouth and we won that,” said Coleman.

“I thought we were very good in the first half. On another day we might have scored more than one.

“But the lads are disappointed with the way we defended. We should never have let him get a shot away on either occasion.

“Dagenham haven’t had the best of luck. I watched them last Friday and they managed to lose a game they should have won so I suppose it’s swings and roundabouts.”