O's Narrowly Beat Pompey

Shaun Batt`s second goal of his loan spell was enough to give Orient victory in an even match at Brisbane Road.

Portsmouth, currently 23rd in the league belied their position as they played with spirit and desire which could have seen them take something from E10.

Indeed it was the visitors who started the brighter, with Jed Wallace testing out Jamie Jones in the Orient goal.

The O`s looked disjointed as gaffer Russell Slade made changes to his starting 11 to rotate his tiring squad and they were nearly made to pay for their awkward start.

Patrick Agyemang held the ball up on the edge of the Orient box and laid a perfect square pass to Jed Wallace who with the whole goal to shoot at powerfully fired straight into Jamie Jones`s legs.

After that let off, the home side began to up their performance and started to dominate proceedings in the midfield. Lee Cook had Orient`s best opportunity of a frustrating half as his run and shot had to be well repelled by Pompey keeper Simon Eastwood.

In the second period the O`s started far more positively than they began the match and almost created a goal scoring opportunity within minutes of the restart.

Shaun Batt raced through to win the ball and was one-on-one with the keeper, only for the referee to have adjudged that he fouled Ricardo Rocha in the process of him getting to the ball.

But Batt wasn`t to be denied for long. On 57 minutes an awful back pass from Dan Butler played the ball into the path of Batt who scampered into the penalty area and coolly rolled the ball under Eastwood to give Orient a fortunate lead.

Pompey then went on the charge for an equaliser. David Connolly went close when Orient couldn`t clear a dangerous ball into the box and his shot had to be blocked close to the line by Elliott Omozusi.

The O`s were still trying to grab another goal at the opposite end. Substitute Kevin Lisbie forced a good save out of Eastwood after a good run and shot from the Jamaican.

Pompey's last clear cut chance of the night fell to Connolly nine minutes from time. The Irishman found himself free on the right hand side of the penalty area but with Omozusi scampering to pressure the forwards he dragged his angled shot narrowly wide of the far post.

Portsmouth kept pressing to the end with several set pieces wasted deep into injury time, but they were unable to find a way through with Orient hanging on for three points.

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