Mysteries of Orient’s slow starts elude Ross

ONE point wasn’t enough for Orient head coach Ross Embleton, who expressed his disappointment at the draw with Oldham.

“The message I have given to the lads in there is that too many times this season we have been poor in the first half and had to come out second half all guns blazing and I am not willing to accept it,” he said.

“We have taken the lead in our past two games and, once again, but for some reason our mind set changes and I feel there needs to be better game management.

“These are big moments in games and we didn’t have the focus to build on the early goal.

All four goals came as a result of set-pieces.

Ousse Cisse opened the scoring when he headed the ball goalwards following a corner and the ball rebounded off the unfortunate Hamer past Latics goalkeeper Gary Woods.

But the visitors’ disappointment was short-lived. They equalised within 90 seconds when Carl Piergianni drove the ball forward from a corner and Dearnley stabbed home.

And Dearnley made it two in three minutes when David Wheater knocked the ball on from a corner and the unmarked Dearnley was able to score his second of the afternoon from close-range after 18 minutes.

The Londoners found themselves back on level terms after 54 minutes when Josh Wright delivered a set-piece to the far post and Connor Wilkinson headed the ball across the goal for Danny Johnson to apply the finishing touch.

The visitors were denied all three points when Lawrence Vigouroux palmed away a goal-bound header from Danny Rowe in added time.

Nevertheless, Latics head coach Dino

Maamria was content with the result.

“It was a very good away performance I thought between two good teams in difficult conditions with the wind and a bobbly pitch,” he stated.

“I thought both teams showed a lot of desire to win the game and their goalkeeper made an unbelievable save from Danny Rowe’s header in the last minute to deny us three points.

“I thought the point was the least we deserved but, overall, it is a huge step forward from our last away performance.

“I thought we showed resilience.”