Ross Embleton hailed a “deserved” three points for Leyton Orient after they held on to beat Cambridge United 3-2 away from home.

Orient were forced to hang on after first-half strikes from Jamie Turley, Josh Wright and Jordan Maguire-Drew were almost cancelled out by Jack Roles and Sam Smith.

Some desperate defending, though, and a stellar performance from Sam Sargeant in goal, preserved the win for the O’s, who tasted League Two success for the first time since October.

Speaking after the game, Embleton said: “It’s really strange because I’ve just walked in and it was almost a subdued feel to the fact we’d won a game of football, and obviously the reason for that is because of the way the second half panned out.

“We have to remember that it’s been a while since we’ve had that feeling. I think although the second half turned out to be the way that it did, I felt that our first-half performance certainly deserved three points, as unusual as it feels because they’ve probably come off the field with more of an upbeat feel in terms of the way the second half went, albeit we’ve come out with the points.

“I think the main thing, first and foremost, is that we’ve got over the line and we’ve got them three points on the table that we’ve been waiting for for a very long time.”

After a well-worked move resulted in Turley volleying home the opener and then Wright finishing after his initial penalty had been saved by Dimitar Mitov, the goal of the day came from a wonderful Maguire-Drew free-kick that bent into the bottom corner from 30 yards.

On the goal, Embleton said: “Matty Harrold called it behind me and said ‘he’s going to hit this at the near post’ and I felt like it was too far out for Jordan to do that.

“I knew he had the quality to deceive the goalkeeper but I felt he was a bit too far up the pitch to do it but it was a fantastic strike and the minute it left his foot you could see the goalkeeper scrambling and he wasn’t going to make it.”

There was a late change to the line-up for Orient as James Brophy came in for Conor Wilkinson at the last minute, and the boss explained the striker’s absence was different to his previous injury this season.

He said: “Conor was complaining this morning when he got on the coach that it was still a bit sore but ‘I’ll be alright, I’ll be fine’. He was nursing it a bit yesterday and he came out of the warm-up and said that he couldn’t strike the ball and didn’t feel as though he was moving freely.

“I didn’t want to risk him as we’ve got a busy period coming up and a ready-made and good replacement in James Brophy who I thought stepped in and worked really hard today.

“It looks a bit further up towards the top of his thigh or quad, sort of near his hip. I’m hoping we’ve caught it early enough to not miss him for too long but I think we’ll have to give that a day or so to settle down.”

Next up for the O’s is another big game against one of the nearer teams in the league as Colchester United travel to the Breyer Group Stadium on Boxing Day at the earlier kick-off time of 1.00pm.