Well, I enjoyed that. The best we have played since the Woking game and we looked much more like our old selves tonight. The 442 formation was pretty risky without Harris and we rode our luck at times in the first half, but we were the better team overall and deserved the win.
For the first thirty minutes of the first half I thought we played our best football for a while. Individually and collectively we looked much more confident and sharp and Tollitt gave us the natural width and ability to beat a man we have lacked all season. Norburn, Norwood and Cook were all having much better games than recently. We deserved to be ahead in this period, but Orient's opener demonstrated the dangers of the system we were playing with no real defensive midfielder: McNulty got caught on the halfway line and Orient counter attacked and cut through us like butter. Tollitt's injury seemed to knock us out of our stride for fifteen or twenty minutes and we were actually poorer immediately after the equaliser, Orient having two or three good chances and showing they could play some decent football themselves.
However, the second half was all Rovers. The standard of the football was not so good with the conditions almost unplayable towards the end, and we missed Tollitt. However Mottley-Henry had a very encouraging debut and continued to give us width, providing a couple of great crosses, most notably for Norwood's winner.
Individually, I thought six or seven players were much improved tonight, but I would give man of the match to Norwood. Not everything came off for him, but he kept running and chasing and had a hand in the first goal as well as scoring the second.
Our prospects look a lot brighter with the 442 formation, so hopefully Tollitt's setback is not too serious.
On to Saturday.