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THE FA Trophy could be the light at the end of a troubled season for Leyton Orient, though they made hard work of overcoming battling Dover in this thriller at Crabble.
David Mooney’s delicious injurytime chip sent the O’s into the quarter-finals, with boss Justin Edinburgh a relieved man after his team surrendered a three-goal lead with over half an hour still on the clock.
“We were a couple of minutes away from our best performance since I have been here”, he said afterwards. “But in the end we needed David’s incredible finish to get us in to the next round.
“The result was nothing we didn’t deserve, but we were certainly the instigators of our own problems to let them back into the game.”
Visiting keeper Dean Brill proved he is still as agile as ever, tipping over Giancarlo Gallifuoco’s looping header and expertly turning away Anthony Jeffrey’s fierce drive early on.
Whites stopper Mitch Walker also found himself busy, denying Matt Harrold with his legs and flinging himself to palm behind Lemar Reynolds’ effort.
Macauley Bonne, Josh Coulson and Harold were unable to convert during a goalmouth melee from the resulting corner, and the Athletic backline finally cleared the danger at the fourth attempt.
But the home defence was breached with ten minutes of the half remaining as George Elokobi powered in Jobi McAnuff ’s corner.
Nortei Nortey and Mitch Brundle both went close to equalising, while Josh Passley somehow cleared Harrold’s clever finish off the goal line as the referee ended a pulsating half of football.
Brill then saved from Ryan Bird, and that miss proved costly as Bonne spectacularly doubled the away team’s lead – the Zimbabwean picking the ball up 30 yards from goal and curling past Walker’s despairing dive.
And it seemed Orient were coasting into round three when Harrold made it 3-0, stabbing in Elokobi’s knock-down.
But Dover and Bird had other ideas as the striker poked in Mitch Pinnock’s shot to reduce the deficit. And Orient’s quarter-final plans were temporarily put on ice as Pinnock lobbed in following miscommunication between Brill and Coulson.
The comeback was seemingly complete once Bird slotted in after following up on sub Kadell Daniel’s shot. However, Mooney had other ideas, winning the game for his side with just seconds remaining, much to Chris Kinnear’s disappointment.
“We started well, but they took their chances,” revealed the Dover boss.
“They hit us at the death. I can’t knock the lads as they showed real character when a lot of other sides in that position would have gone missing.”