James Dayton believes Leyton Orient’s quick start against Havant and Waterlooville was crucial after the O’s returned to winning ways on home turf at the weekend.

Orient were cruising at half-time thanks to strikes from Josh Coulson and Charlie Lee as well as an own goal from Theo Lewis.

Their control of the game continued in the second half and top scorer Macauley Bonne rounded off a fine afternoon at the Breyer Group Stadium by making it 4-0 on the hour mark when he fired low past Ben Dudzinski.

Having made six changes to the side for last week’s FA Cup defeat to Maidstone United, head coach Justin Edinburgh decided to largely revert back to the team which had started the National League campaign so well against Havant and Waterlooville.

Sam Ling and Josh Koroma were the the only changes to the side which played out a goalless draw with Hartlepool United two weeks ago, with the duo replacing James Alabi as well as Joe Widdowson, who missed out through suspension. 

Dayton says the O’s were determined to get back to winning ways on home turf following their goalless draw with Hartlepool and feels their quick start at the weekend boosted their confidence.

Speaking to Leyton Orient’s website, the winger said: “Yeah it was a big win and one that we wanted to put right after the 0-0 draw with Hartlepool United. Obviously we did perform well after going down to ten men on that day. But the four goals was a very good result for us.

“We said we wanted to come out of the blocks sharp and hit Havant hard and I feel we did that with the early goal. We just kept out foot on the pedal and kept going.

“We ooze confidence anyway but with a few goals behind us, that can only bring more confidence and I think we played on that.”

Dayton has proven himself to be a key player for Orient this season since coming into the side against Maidstone in August, scoring two superb goals against both Chesterfield and Barnet in September.

One of the 29-year-old’s main attributes is his expert delivery from set-pieces and the O’s took full advantage of that trait on Saturday for their first goal, with Coulson thumping home the rebound after Dudzinski had saved Lee’s header from point blank range from Dayton’s free-kick.

However, despite that goal, the former Cheltenham Town winger feels that Orient can be more of a threat from set-pieces.

He said: “We’ve worked on a few things and we’ve got good quality in the squad and the team. I don’t think we’ve made enough of set-pieces recently and it’s good today that it paid off, so hopefully we can continue that.”