Barbados international is hopeful of adding to his 32 appearances for Dagenham this term.

Jon Nurse is confident he can fight off growing competition from within the Daggers squad and retain his place in the starting 11.

Cameron Lancaster’s arrival on loan from Tottenham last week took the number of recognised strikers at Victoria Road to eight, although Gavin Tomlin is out on loan with Torquay and Josh Scott is set to miss the rest of the season with a blood clot.

But Nurse, who had scored six goals in 12 games prior to Tuesday’s visit of Brighton, believes he has a key part to play in Daggers run-in.

“There are no guarantees that I’ll start every week,” he admitted.

“But as long as I keep doing what the gaffer wants me doing and I keep scoring goals, hopefully I’ll stay in.

“I was a bit disappointed not to score again (against Sheffield Wednesday). That’s the kind of form I’m in at the moment, the fact that I’ve not scored today is a disappointment, but I’ll keep going and hopefully they’ll keep going in.”

The Barbados international striker had a goal disallowed on the stroke of half time in Saturday’s draw with Sheffield Wednesday.

Nurse was penalised for a foul on keeper Richard O’Donnell as the pair contested Damien McCrory’s cross and after the break his tame header was comfortably saved by the Wednesday stopper.

But while the 30-year-old failed to score he was delighted to see his side maintain their excellent recent form.

“It was a bit of a funny game. They nicked a goal out of nowhere in the first half, so it puts you on the back foot coming from a goal behind, but we stuck at it and ground out a good point,” said Nurse.

“They’re a big side, it was like they had four centre-halves at the back and we couldn’t get in behind as much as we normally do.

“It keeps the unbeaten run going. We’re a bit disappointed not to win, because we’ve been in that kind of form at home.

“We don’t worry about anyone else, we just worry about us and as long as we pick up the points we need we’ll be in League One next year.”