Leyton Orient manager Richie Wellens has praised Bristol Rovers’ intensity levels in their performance against the O’s on New Year’s Day having been desperately poor in the reverse fixture four weeks prior.

Although Orient proved victorious once again with a 3-2 success at the Mem having won 3-0 at Brisbane Road, they had to work significantly harder for the points with Rovers unfortunate not to have taken something out of Inigo Calderon’s first home game in charge.

The visitors scored with two excellent finishes in the first half, the second of which coming against the run of play, either side of an equalising penalty from Chris Martin. However, a mistake from Lino Sousa early in the second half allowed the East London outfit to double their advantage before Josh Griffiths was required to make a trio of saves to keep his team in the game.

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However, Rovers rediscovered some of their early momentum in the final 20 minutes as Martin halved the deficit with his second of the match before the Gas looked to have equalised late on but a handball from Gatlin O’Donkor saw the goal disallowed.

Orient's 3-0 win on December 3, in which Rovers produced just three off target shots, was the start of an outstanding run that has seen them go nine games unbeaten, winning eight and drawing one with the Gas' goals the first they've conceded in the league since November 26.

Speaking post-match, Wellens said: “I thought at times we were really good and could have scored more but then coming here, first home game under a new manager, I have to take my hat off to them. They stayed in the game. They kept going. We obviously played them about three weeks ago and the intensity levels that they showed today was a hell of a lot more than what they showed three weeks ago so it was a difficult game.

“At 3-1, we should have managed the game a little bit more by either getting the fourth one or stop this crowd getting involved because I thought the crowd was excellent for them in the last 20, 25 minutes and the most pleasing thing is the result.

“This is the most chances we’ve given up in a long, long while and a lot of them were either our mistakes or we were tired mentally so you don’t work while the ball is moving to get in the right position and it just affected us.”

Home supporters were frustrated with a number of decisions from the officials throughout the contest but the stand out was when Alan Young didn’t show a yellow card to the already-booked Diallang Jaiyesimi for dragging back Grant Ward late in the first half.

Wellens’ view on the decision was clear when he withdrew Jaiyesimi at half-time, adding: “I think if the lad goes down then the referee has no other option than to send him off. Luckily for us, the lad didn’t go down and then we’ve got four or five minutes where I’m saying to DJ, ‘listen, I don’t want to embarrass you by bringing you off before the half-time whistle but don’t make another offence’ because it was quite clear that if he had done one more thing then he was going to be off.”

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