Interim head coach Ross Embleton felt that Leyton Orient’s young players really took their chance in the 2-0 Leasing.com Trophy win against Southend United on Tuesday.

Dan Happe and Dale Gorman were amongst the goals but there was youth all over the pitch, with teenager Shadrach Ogie making his full debut at left-back and Tottenham Hotspur loanee George Marsh doing the same in midfield.

Speaking after the game, Embleton said: “The message before the game was, of course, that we want to go out to win, but it was a night for me of opportunities. I think that you start the season in any cup competition like this and it tells you that if you approach things right, you never know where it can lead to.

“Although sitting down in the changing room tonight feels a distance away from where the competition ends, you never know, if you go about it in the right way, what you can achieve so it was about giving everybody a real opportunity to play in this competition this year and at the same time opportunities for everybody that hasn’t had the minutes that I’m sure they’ve been wanting on the pitch to go and put in a performance, which they did.”

The youngest of those on the pitch was defender Ogie, who was making his full debut for the O’s after a handful of substitute appearances in the FA Trophy last season, and after showing real patience to overcome clearance issues and get his chance in the team, he grabbed it with both hands.

Embleton said: “It was a long time waiting last year in terms of his international clearance. For a young lad he stuck at it incredibly well. He would have been entitled to switch off on a number of occasions.

“The lads are very hard on him here. In training his name is always the one that is shouted if he makes a mistake but I think what that tells you is that people at this club think he’s got a very big future and they want to drive him on. So, when he makes mistakes, you can correct them.

“I think a night like tonight was fantastic because yes, he did very, very well in the first half, but what it does now is it gives us a real opportunity to show him that he’s good, different sides of his game and in a competitive environment so we could only have done him an incredible amount of favours tonight to be involved in that.”

Next up for the O’s is the visit of Swindon Town to the Breyer Group Stadium, a former club of both Embleton and the club’s director of football Martin Ling, and the boss is looking forward to coming up against his former employers.

He said: “It’s a game that’s massive to me and it’s massive to this club and it’s an opportunity for us to get a good result in front of a big crowd at home this weekend. Like I said, tonight was about that opportunity to make your mark on the game and give me a problem for the weekend and the coming weeks after that and a number of the lads have done that this evening.”

Kick off for that match is at 3pm at the Breyer Group Stadium as the O's search for their third league win.