French midfielder experiences other side of coin

Romain Vincelot had been a play-off winner at Wembley with Dagenham & Redbridge.

Now he has experienced the other side of the coin after Orient’s devastating penalty shoot-out defeat to Rotherham.

The Frenchman describes them as the “complete opposite” and said: “We gave everything to be in the play-offs.

“It’s 49 games where you give everything, but the whole season depends on that last game.

“When it goes to penalties anything can happen. We took it to extra time and penalties and you can’t go further than that in effort.

“Penalties are a score, but they’re also a bit of a lottery. It’s very hard to take.”

The midfielder, who produced a composed performance over the 120 minutes, is hopeful his team-mates use the heartbreaking experience to their advantage.

And he refused to blame the two players who missed from the spot, using the motto: “We miss together.”

Vincelot added: “In football you can’t blame players who miss the penalties. They accept the responsibility when they step up.

“We’ve been a unit all season and that’s not going to change.

“It’s an experience. It’s a really harsh one, but if you take a good lesson from it, it can help you.

“Right now it’s really hard, but hopefully there will be a positive side in a few weeks. At the moment there’s none.”

Vincelot admits the fact Orient were so close will make defeat even harder to swallow.

They were in League One’s automatic promotion places for a large part of the season and led the play-off final 2-0 at half-time after goals from Moses Odubajo and Dean Cox.

They were ahead in the shoot-out too after Jamie Jones saved Rotherham’s second kick from Lee Frecklington.

But Mathieu Baudry and Chris Dagnall missed Orient’s final two efforts and O’s face a big test to come back stronger next season.

This campaign came down to a matter of “inches” according to Vincelot, who added: “We were playing well, we had more chances but it doesn’t get you the result. It comes down to inches, a bounce of the ball here and there.

“Even if you’re 1-0 or 2-0 up against them, they have a big targetman and keep throwing the ball into the area.

“Right now, I just want to swallow and have a little holiday, but it will stay in the guts.

“We need time to digest it and then we’ll go again next season. But first we have to forget about it for a bit.”