Huddersfield Town 2 Leyton Orient 2: McCombe faces Clark’s wrath

HUDDERSFIELD tossed away a two-goal lead as Leyton Orient snatched a point with two late goals, writes Robert Gledhill.

Lee Clark named an unchanged side for the visit of League One basement club Orient

It meant that he fielded a twin spearhead in Alan Lee and Lee Novak, whose late penalty miss at MK Dons in the previous match had cost Town victory.

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Club captain Peter Clarke, recovered from back trouble, was again unable to take his place in central defence as Clark opted for Jamie McCombe and Antony Kay.

Oscar Gobern rattled the bar in the early stages for Town, who took the lead midway through the first half, Lee heading a deep cross from right-back Jack Hunt.

George Porter almost raced through following a poor clearance from goalkeeper Ian Bennett but the Orient winger was denied by a sliding tackle from Kay.

After a quiet start to the second half, Town replaced Danny Ward with winger Gary Roberts in a bid to unlock the Orient defence.

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The points appeared to be wrapped us as Hunt let fly from the right corner of the area into the opposite top corner of the net to make it 2-0 in the 68th minute.

Both sides swopped strikers, Jordan Rhodes replacing Novak and Orient’s Kevin Lisbie on for lone front-runner David Mooney.

With the ball out of play Jamie McCombe was shown a straight red for flattening Porter off the ball and Orient struck from the ensuing corner as Lisbie headed home to make it 2-1 in the 86th minute.

Town were undone in the first of the five minutes of stoppage time when Ben Chorley equalised with a shot from outside the area.

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“We were comfortable without playing brilliantly and we were doing the job,” commented Clark.

“One player has let us down massively through an act of indiscipline; so he will be fined the maximum that we can fine him and I would probably say that he will find it very difficult to get back into the team.”

On McCombe’s straight red card, Clark said: “All I can say is that he threw the lad over, which he cannot do. You cannot raise your hands in football; rugby was last night and today is football - it has cost us two points.

“Three points today would have been a terrific start to the season for us with 20 points from 10 games, so I am unbelievable angry - I cannot believe what has happened.”

For full reports and reaction read the Yorkshire Post on Saturday and Monday and follow the action throughout the games on the Yorkshire Post website.