The Brisbane Road club needed their experienced forward to score a stoppage time winner to rescue them from an FA Trophy replay

Leyton Orient head coach Justin Edinburgh praised the professionalism of forward David Mooney after seeing the striker net the winner at Dover Athletic in the third round of the FA Trophy.

The 33-year-old came off the bench to score competitively for the first time since October 7 – ending a 16-game run without a goal.

It also got his team-mates out of trouble after the O’s had squandered a three-goal lead to get pegged back to 3-3 at the Crabble Athletic Ground.

Mooney came up trumps in stoppage time to hand Orient a thrilling 4-3 cup win and book them a spot in the last-eight of the competition.

“I’m pleased for ‘Moons’ because he has had to be patient, but he has been a top class pro and not many people could have scored that goal, so we know what he is all about,” Edinburgh told BBC London.

“It was a frustrating afternoon and I have mixed emotions because some of the finishes were exquisite.

“Some of the goals were very good, but on the flip side we allowed such a comfortable performance to nearly be overshadowed by lapses of concentration.”

George Elokobi’s second goal in three games gave O’s a first-half lead and Macauley Bonne made it 2-0 soon after the restart with a long range finish.

Matt Harrold made it 3-0 minutes later and at this point Orient appeared to be cruising through.

Dover fought back impressive though with Ryan Bird reducing the deficit and Mitch Pinnock then lobbing Dean Brill to make it 3-2.

More poor defending allowed Bird to level the scores with eight minutes to go, but Mooney’s superb chipped finish handed the visitors another FA Trophy success.

It might have been more straight-forward had Bonne not missed three excellent chances after his 30-yard curler.

The ex-Colchester United forward was denied on a one-on-one situation by Mitch Walker before wasting two further good opportunities.

Edinburgh added: “What we have to be mindful of with ‘Macca’ is he is a young boy in his first, full season in competitive football.

“He has had appearances at Colchester and other loans, but he is the talisman of this football club at the minute and he will learn from games like this.

“What you don’t see is him shying away and I’m his biggest fan and his biggest critic because he could have had five goals, but if he had five he probably wouldn’t be here because we would have had to let him go.

“Although we have to be critical, we also have to be supportive and understand he is still learning his game and developing.”

The draw for the quarter-finals will take place just after 1pm this afternoon.