Glovers 4 Orient 0

Having lost the Watford game to the rain many might have thought The Glovers could lose the FA Cup third round tie to Orient for the same reasons. Fortunately we didn’t as we built on the good start, like we made against Huddersfield before being thrashed, to beat the SkyBet League One promotion candidates.

James Hayter grabbed himself a goal in either half to help us on our way to a 4-0 win and a place in the fourth round.

Similarly to the last match that The Glovers were able to play we were ahead early, this time a couple of minutes sooner than we were against Huddersfield as Hayter headed into an empty net on 12-minutes. He got the opportunity after Shame Duffy was able to beat Orient goalkeeper Jake Larkins to the ball following a free kick that was played into the box.

This goal had actually came after Orient had made the brighter start in the difficult conditions and come close to opening the scoring earlier.

Hayter could have added a second before half time with Larkin almost gifting The Glovers another goal as well, Sam Foley blocked his attempted clearance but it went agonisingly wide, from our prospective, for a goal kick.

With a lead in tact the break would’ve been welcomer for Orient, we’d have wanted to carry on but it didn’t take long for the second goal to come after half time. A dangerous ball across the box from Liam Davies was latched onto by Joel Grant on 49-minutes as he made it two.

To the credit of Orient they continued to play their football, or tried to, but they were caught out again on 60-minutes when Hayter added his second of the afternoon. Kevin Dawson’s run ended in a cross to the striker and with him unmarked he scored with another header, as he so often has in his career, to give The Glovers clear breathing space.

Marek Stech, who’d come off at half time in that Huddersfield defeat, denied Orient a route back into the game late on before Kieffer Moore, who had come on, slotted past the unfortunate Larkin (not a game he’ll remember fondly) on 90-minutes to make it four.

Not too many shrieking violets on display today, that’ll please Gary Johnson and he’ll be hoping that this can breed some confidence into the squad and helped us move out of relegation trouble and make sure we’re not potentially replaced by Orient with them going up and us going down.

A place in the fourth round, for the first time in almost 10-years, will allow us to have at least one more distraction from the SkyBet Championship this season and we’ll find out who the opponents will be on Sunday.