Pilgrims 1-2 Leyton Orient

Coca Cola League

Manager Steve Evans had a point to prove when Martin Ling's Leyton Orient side visited York Street for this Coca Cola League Two clash. Ling had won the October "Manager of the Month" award much to the disgust of Evans who thought he himself should have got it - publically attributing the perceived injustice to Chris Kamara and his little judges. But it was Evans who turned out to be the diminutive one - even refusing to shake Ling's hand at the end of the match after his Boston side had been outplayed and outfought by the team from East London. There were four changes to the starting line-up. Stewart Talbot and Mark Greaves returned after recovering from injuries and Bradley Maylett and David Galbraith were preferred over Danny Thomas and Lawrie Dudfield. Boston had much of the early possession but failed to create real goal scoring chances. The referee was kept busy in a very physical match and had booked three Orient players and two Boston players before Orient took the lead two minutes from half time. Jabo IBEHRE raced past Paul Ellender to latch onto a throughball from Gary Alexander before smashing the ball past Conrad Logan in the Boston goal. Boston rang the changes at half time bringing on Austin McCann and Lawrie Dudfield in place of Alan White and Francis Green, both having picked up first half injuries.

Boston attacked from the start and produced an equaliser on 49 minutes. Stewart TALBOT scored his first League goal for Boston when Orient failed to clear a corner allowing him to lash the ball home from 10 yards out. Orient now began to dominate as they looked to retake the lead. Ellender had to produce a great tackle to deny Ibehre. Then Logan had to make a fine save to keep out a free kick taken by Matthew Lockwood. Orient scored their second goal in spectacular fashion. A whole sequence of shots rained in on the Boston goal and each time the ball fell nicely for another Orient attempt. Logan made two superb saves and another two shots were blocked before ALEXANDER finally forced the ball home. Jason Lee was brought on for the final twenty five minutes as Boston threw caution to the wind to try and gain something from the match. It almost paid off when in the closing minutes Dudfield found space after being picked out by Julian Joachim, but his shot was wide of the post. After the match Steve Evans said: "I'm disappointed with the result. If you make errors against average teams you get punished."

United team: Conrad Logan, Lee Canoville, Paul Ellender, Alan White (Austin McCann 46), Mark Greaves, Simon Rusk, Stewart Talbot, Bradley Maylett, David Galbraith (Jason Lee 66), Francis Green (Lawrie Dudfield 46), Julian Joachim. Subs not used: Chris Holland, Danny Thomas.