ORIENT youngster Andrew Cave-Brown insists the team are up for the fight against relegation.

And the 20-year-old insisted the uncertainty around the appointment of a new boss has not hit dressing-room morale.

“I’m not too concerned about who comes in,” he said. “We know the job in hand. All we’re doing is focusing on the next game and we’re not too fussed about all that.”

The defender is a Scotland under-21 international who is now making himself a regular in the side, after he joined on a free from Norwich last July.

Speaking after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at promotion-chasing Scunthorpe United, Cave added: “All the lads know where we are and there's no-one who's not ready. We're all up for the fight and we all know what we have to do. And I think we showed that on Saturday. We had the fighting spirit. We were unfortunate.

“We set out to contain them and I thought we did that quite well in the first half, but they got one right before half time. It was always going to be a tough game at Scunthorpe.”

Though Orient left Scunthorpe pointless, they were buoyed by a spirited performance which bodes well for the battle they face.

A patch-work team picked by stand-in boss Kevin Nugent gave a good account of themselves.

The O’s set out to contain The Iron, and that is what they did.

But the luckless east Londoners were undone by two lapses in concentration, which were both punished.

Iron striker Paul Hayes fired into the roof of the net after not being picked up just eight yards out, in the very last minute of the first half.

Then, in the 64th minute, Garry Thompson pounced and lashed Scunthorpe ahead from nine yards to cancel out Dean Morgan’s coolly-taken 58th-minute equaliser.

Morgan had latched on to a defence-shredding through ball by Ryan Jarvis and slotted his shot under on-rushing Iron keeper Joe Murphy from 18 yards.

Afterwards, Nugent admitted the role he has been thrown into was tough, but was positive about Orient’s prospects.

He said: “You can see by the effort the lads are putting in, how unfortunate they were not to come away with something. The lads showed tremendous character and it was disappointing.

“In the second half we really came out and went at them. We got a fantastic goal and we thought we had a chance. But then again they scored from another lapse in concentration. But even after that we had chances and the lads have come out of it with their heads held high.

“That’s the story of the season so far, we've been letting in slack goals. But we’ve put in a couple of decent performances.”