Nigel Pearson praised Tommy Conway's hunger to succeed after the young Bristol City striker scored twice in the Robins' dominant 4-1 victory over Coventry.
The 20-year-old scored his second and third senior goals for the club inside 12 minutes as City blew the 'hosts' away with a clinical and ruthless first half performance.
Kal Naismith opened the scoring after 13 minutes when he headed in from close range before Conway finished beyond keeper Ben Wilson after latching onto Han-Noah Massengo's through ball just five minutes later.
On 30 minutes it was three as some superb work by Nahki Wells allowed Conway to stride forward before his deflected effort crept into the corner of the net to send the handful of City fans in the corner of Burton's Pirelli Stadium into raptures.
Jamie Allen threatened a second half comeback but City rode out the storm before Andi Weimann added the gloss on a brilliant performance to score his third in three games towards the end of the contest.
"He'll be disappointed not to get his hat-trick," Pearson said. "But that's what you want. You want ambitious players, I thought Nahki worked hard too especially in the first half.
"They give us pace and the ability to work the defence as Andi gives us as well. Andi played in a slightly deeper role today and they made eight changes and we wanted to cause them a problem with our pace. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses but what's important is that the players are ready to take opportunities.
"Tommy was in and around our squad last year and he's a player who we think has got a lot of qualities which will lend themselves to being very useful in the first-team. He's a youngster and he's very hungry for success and he works exceptionally hard and on a physical level and a psychological level he's made great strides over the last 12 months.
"That's a testament to how he approaches his work."
Pearson wanted a reaction from his side after Saturday's defeat to Sunderland and that's exactly what he got to kick-start City's campaign. He was particularly impressed with the resilience his side showed after Coventry clawed their way back into the game.
He added: "It's just the result we were looking for. We've had three pretty good performances so far. Saturday we caused ourselves problems at the weekend but I thought tonight we played pretty well even after five changes and it was good for the squad to get a bit of pitch time tonight.
"I think we always looked like scoring. The problem has been keeping things tight collectively. I thought the back three in particular were solid tonight and the wing-backs coped too.
"Andy King was very disciplined and showed his game understanding playing as a deeper player in midfield so there were a lot of good things and good to get a couple of fresh legs up top too.
"We test ourselves so it's whether our own demons kick in or whether we were able to deal with the pressure and I thought they did very well."
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