Brisbane Road interim boss reflects on Pollock’s performance and admits they’ve not spoke to president about next season

Leyton Orient caretaker Andy Hessenthaler hailed the performance of Aron Pollock after his impressive debut against Mansfield Town this afternoon.

Ollie Palmer scored the only goal of the League Two match at Brisbane Road in the 49th minute and shined against his former club.

At the other end, Pollock, making his first appearance for the O’s, was so composed at the centre of defence and looked good alongside Shaun Brisley.

The 18-year-old was brilliant all match while Sandro Semedo gave glimpses of his potential in the first half and Josh Koroma enjoyed a decent cameo late on.

Hessenthaler said: “Pollock was outstanding, he was a little bit nervous in the first 10 minutes which was understandable, but grew into the game. I thought he was excellent and has a bright future.

“I said in the changing room what we’ve got coming through is fantastic and credit to Andy Edwards, Danny Webb and Richard Thomas because they’ve done a fantastic job to produce these youngsters and now they are up in the first team.

“The youth have had a fantastic season, won the league and credit to them – it is nice that they’ve seen three of their team mates making their debuts today.

“Sandro is a little bit older than them, but come through the system as well. I’m sure it won’t be long before a few more in that under-18s team are making their debuts.”

Orient’s caretaker admitted he was never likely to play more of the youth side because he felt it was important the ones that did feature had a lot of experienced players alongside them.

Sean Clohessy, Brisley and Peter Ramage helped Pollock through at the back while Semedo had Lloyd James, captain for the afternoon, in midfield.

“I wasn’t really tempted to play more because if you put too many in it could disrupt things and I don’t think it would have been great for the kids if we had too many of them out there,” said Hessenthaler.

“We needed some experience alongside them and Aron had the likes of Sean at right-back because Nicky Hunt went down ill.

“Brisley was there, he was immense today and ‘Rambo’ played as well. Unfortunately he had to come off because he was feeling unwell so we made that change.

“With the experience we had like Lloyd James in and around midfield for Sandro, it worked well I thought.”

Again Hessenthaler was asked if he knew what the future holds with the season just one game from finishing now.

The 50-year-old conceded he hadn’t seen president Francesco Becchetti this past week and will be carrying on as normal.

He added: “I don’t know what will happen next, I haven’t got a crystal ball. Only time will tell, we have one game left and the presentation tomorrow.

“We’ll do it the right way again this week, go to Yeovil Town on Saturday and hopefully finish with a win.

“We haven’t seen the owner this week. He is away or been busy so we haven’t had a conversation with him. We’ve got on with training like normal.”