MANAGER Geraint Williams has called on the Orient players to bounce back fast from their shock Johnstone Paint Trophy exit on Tuesday night.

The O's went down with a bad dose of cup fever, as they were dumped out in the quarter-finals on penalties by League Two Hereford United at Brisbane Road.

Now the best route to Wembley has gone.

Talking after the nail-biting shoot-out, which ended 3-2 to the Bulls, Williams said: “We created more chances in 45 minutes than we have in the past four or five matches. It's important we keep that attacking intent and keep our heads up.

“I hate losing any game. I'm very disappointed to lose, and especially in front of our own fans.

“But we move on. The league is the most important thing to this club.

It's important we do bounce back and don't dwell on this too long.”

Williams demanded that the players made up for their toothless first-half display against Hereford.

Then the home side were poorer than they have been all season.

At least the fans who travelled to watch Orient's dismal 1-1 draw at Tranmere Rovers in round one of the FA Cup on Saturday had a goal to cheer by half-time.

However, the players responded to Williams' half-time rocket on Tuesday.

They bombarded Hereford's penalty area in the second 45 minutes, creating 20 chances, with 12 of them on target.

In contrast, the Bulls had one chance on target the whole game.

Ex-Orient player Leo Constantine converted it on 24 minutes.

So Williams has some reasons to be cheerful ahead of the long journey to Hartlepool on Saturday.

“At half-time I felt people were getting disgruntled around the ground and understandably so,” he said.

“We were losing at home to a lower-league team. I said it would show an awful lot about the players if we stood up to be counted, passed the ball around and created chances. They gave me an emphatic answer with that chance count.”

Midfielder Jason Demetriou scored Orient's equaliser with the last kick of the game, deep in stoppage time.

He converted his penalty kick too.

But Adam Bartlett, in goal for Hereford, was in inspired form.

He parried spot kicks by Sean Thornton, Charlie Daniels and Luke Summerfield to seal the win.

Talking afterwards, Demetriou said he would look on the bright side ahead of Saturday's league clash at Hartlepool.

“We don't have any excuses against Hartlepool. If we put in anything like the effort we did in the second half (against Hereford), I'm sure we'll come back with the three points.

“It was probably the best second half we've played this season. We haven't created so many chances for a while. It's amazing when you look at the statistics, we were all over all them.”