Kevin Nugent praises players’ attitude as Orient clinch late point at Peterborough

LEYTON ORIENT assistant manager Kevin Nugent was delighted with the character his side showed, as the O’s twice came from behind to earn a hard-fought point at Peterborough.

As former O’s star Aaron Mclean struck twice to give his side the lead, Alex Revell and Jimmy Smith both notched equalisers to extend Orient’s unbeaten run.

And Nugent was delighted with the never-say-die attitude that has seen his side claim two points from two games with late levellers.

“The spirit in the squad has never been doubted at all, we came back twice today in slightly dubious circumstances, but there was real character and strength in the group and we’ve got a few injuries as well,” he said.

“In the last couple of days we’ve been patching the team up. We’ve barely had a chance to work on any sort of systems and how we were playing and who we were playing against, so it’s been quite difficult, but again we have a lot of strength in there.

“Tonight we’ve created seven or eight good chances, so we’re slightly disappointed we didn’t pick up all three points.”

Two spot-kicks were awarded against Orient on the night, but while Mclean made no mistake from his first one, he failed to claim his hat-trick in added time after Jason Brown saved with his feet.

Nugent felt the first penalty was harshly awarded against the Blackburn stopper, but was just pleased to see his side claim a point.

“The first one, without seeing it again, didn’t look like a penalty whatsoever,” he said.

“The second one, there was a challenge made, but we may have possibly had one ourselves.

“That’s just the way it goes sometimes and we did comeback anyway.”

Orient now face a tricky trip to Blue Square North side Droylsden in the FA Cup second round on Monday night.

With the draw for round three set to take place on Sunday afternoon, the O’s will know who they could face in round three should they overcome the The Bloods, but Nugent insists the players will not be distracted by the possibility of a money-spinning third round tie.

“The preparation will be the same,” insisted Nugent.

“We’ve had them studied, we’ve looked at them, we certainly won’t be taking them lightly at all and we’ll be covering every aspect of their play as we would do anyone else that we play this season.

“We’re just concentrating on getting into the next round of the FA Cup at the moment and we’ll see what happens after that.”