Orient grateful for trouble-free brushing aside of Doncaster as Ballard treble gives season a needed lift

Sunny East Enders : Picture by @YTJourno

League One

Leyton Orient (2) 4 Ballard 2, 49, 72 Connolly 27

Doncaster Rovers (0) 0

It has not been the most encouraging of starts to the season for the O's, who are hoping very much that last season's charge to the play-off final does not prove to be some sort of peak they cannot replicate.

But a comfortable win with a rare hat-trick to celebrate on an unseasonably warm and sunny East End day was just what the doctor ordered.

They went into this one with only one win from five games on home soil and having lost four out of six away to leave them in that uncomfortable region just above the group occupying the lower rungs of League one.

It has to remain a case of 'In Richie Wellens we trust' because he is man who has got them thinking big again and guided them back towards heights last reached long ago.

The Wembley loss to Charlton in May was bound to feel deflating and lead to an adverse reaction, and a little run of three narrow defeats in a row and four without a win going into this game had threatened to add to the gloom.

But there is still plenty of time to turn the ship around and no need to feel out of their depth in a division now much more evenly spread in terms of wealth now the moneybags of Birmingham City and Wrexham have left for better things.

At least in Dom Ballard and Aaron Connolly, the O's have players who should be able to fill in the gap left by Charlie Kelman's departure after a highly successful goalscoring loan spell last season.

Ballard needed little more than a minute to get his fourth goal of the season, taking on a retreating defence before planting a low shot into the corner past keeper Ian Lawlor.

With only one defeat in their past seven visits to Brisbane Road - currently rebranded the BetWright Stadium - the visitors were not about to panic but they were feeble defensively and from a short corner, the lively Connolly drilled home the second to the keeper's left to give the O's a welcome cushion. It was his fifth league goal.

Both Orient strikers came close to adding a third goal before the break but the near misses mattered not. Early in the second half, Rovers made a hash of long ball that should have been cleared and Ballard pounced for his second.

When Killian Cahill tipped a Billy Sharp effort over the bar, it was clear this was not going to be a complicated afternoon for the O's.

The game got the icing on the cake that had been promised when Ballard turned in Connolly's low cross to complete his hat-trick.

Both strikers were taken off for the final quarter. Job done. And on this evidence, at least, there should be better days to come again for the O's, who could afford to play out the last 15 minutes with 10 men after sub Rarmani Edmonds-Jones went off injured.

O's: (3-4-1-2) Cahill - Beckles, Happe, Simpson (Edmonds-Green 70) - Clare (James 63), Bakinson, El Mizouni, Adaramola (Mitchell 78) - Wellens - Ballard (Koroma 79), Connolly (Abdulai 79)

Rovers: (4-1-4-1) Lawlor - Nixon, O'Riordan, McGrath, Senior - Close (Broadbent 55) - Molyneux (Hanlan h/t), Bailey, Sbarra (Gotts 55), Gibson (Middleton h/t) - Sharp

Attendance: 8,128