New Leyton Orient head coach Carl Fletcher is excited by the good blend of youth and experience in the team as they prepare for the beginning of the new era under the former Plymouth boss.

Fletcher will be in the stands at Grimsby Town tomorrow afternoon, allowing Ross Embleton to complete the final game of his interim spell having done all the build-up to the game with the team, meaning Fletcher's debut in the Orient dugout will come next Tuesday at Home Park against his former Pilgrims side.

Saturday will, therefore, give Fletcher a further glimpse of what he has to work with, but he is excited by the opportunity of working with the abundance of "good players" at the club.

He said: "I've probably seen about the last six games but nothing in a training kind of scenario on a day-to-day basis. 

"I'm really looking forward to it. We've got some good players, some good young players, some good older players with good experience so it will be good to start working with them and see how far we can take them."

He continued: "Age is a bit of a relative but as long as they're fit and they're healthy, they want to improve and they want to get better, then that's the most important thing. You could have an older player where you want to do everything you can to get a little bit more out of him or learn a little bit more or improve on a daily basis, or you might have a younger one who doesn't so you're always going to take the older one over that.

"I think our average age is about 26, which is really good, but I think it's important that we get players they want to improve and want to get better on a daily basis."

There may be a gap of seven places between the O's and Grimsby in the current League Two table, but a win for Orient tomorrow would put them ahead of the Mariners by a point and could, mathematically, take them to within a place of the play-off spots.

Orient won this fixture 2-1 in the last season that the two clubs met before being thumped 3-0 at home by Grimsby later in the season on their way to relegation. The Lincolnshire side have the slight upper hand in terms of history too, taking 23 wins compared to Orient's 18 from the 55 previous meetings (there have also been 14 draws).

Current form, though, goes slightly in the visitors' favour, as Orient are unbeaten in their last three games, drawing one and winning tow, while Grimsby have lost their last two, including against struggling Stevenage.

Kick off tomorrow is at 3pm.