MARTIN LING was left to reflect on a game of two halves as Orient saw a bright first half go to waste in Saturday's 2-1 defeat at Port Vale.

The O's looked dominant before the break and should have had more to show for their efforts than Adam Boyd's spot kick.

But they failed to match that performance in the second period and were duly punished by a Port Vale side surely headed for League Two.

Ling insisted that his side's failure to find a matchwinning tempo in the second half was not a fitness issue, but more of a mental one.

He said: "With two goals coming late on, you start to look at fitness levels. I haven't got a problem with that - I'm sure my players are as fit as they have been all season.

"I think it's more of a mental thing. We've now lost three games on the trot and we don't look like turning draws or defeats into wins as we did early in the season.

"We've got to brush ourselves down now because we've got four big games coming up in April, and as I keep saying I don't want the season to drift.

"It's been on the drift these last three games and we need to do something about it."

Orient took a first half lead thanks to Boyd's 16th strike of the season, but Ling knows the visitors should have built on that start.

"We were by far the better side in the first half. We got the goal, and there were many occasions where we cut through them.

"It looked like if we had got the second goal, we could have gone on to win the game convincingly.

"We didn't perform anywhere near the standard we set ourselves in the first half after the break and allowed a team that wasn't playing very well back into the game.

"We only kicked on again once they got the equaliser and it's disappointing because if we had played at that tempo throughout the second half we'd have won the game.

"At half time we gave out a few well dones, said it was a good 45 minutes and let's kick on again now.

"It didn't happen. We didn't do our job professionally enough and that gave them a lifeline. It's frustrating because we lost to a team that we looked far superior to."

And O's boss Ling was also disappointed with his side's inability to make their possesson count.

He added: "There were big gaps between their centre halves and full backs. We exploited that to a degree, but we ran offside a bit too often for my liking, because if we had been a bit cuter, we'd have been clean through on goal several times.

"Not scoring in open play when we had so much of the ball in the first half is disappointing and that's why we've lost the game. We didn't push their heads underwater when we had our foot on them, and that allowed them to come swimming back up to nick the three points off us."