Orient produced another display full of character as Colchester were given a taste of what they are missing in Geraint Williams.

The Os came back from a deficit for the second time in a week at Brisbane Road, this time against the team Williams spent 10 years at as player and boss.

“We are staying up” chanted the South Stand as this game edged towards the final whistle, and it is hard to disagree.

The 2-1 home win means that Geraint Williams' side are now surely safe from the dreaded drop into League Two, having collected 28 points during the Welshman's brief tenure at the club.

Orient sealed three points with goals from Charlie Daniels late in the first half and Scott McGleish late in the second.

In a repeat of the performance against Leeds, which Orient looked like they were still recovering from in the early stages, the host's underwhelmed fans for most of the first half, before stepping on the gas after the break.

Daniels set the tone for the second period deep in first half injury time, when he cancelled out big Clive Platt's 33rd minute goal with a peach of a strike from a free kick.

The left back produced the period's sole moment of quality with his shot from 28 yards. It curled down a corridor of space as wide as a cigarette paper, between the edge of Colchester's wall and the right post, past Gerken at full stretch.

It roused a crowd laid low by Platt's opener. Then, he had climbed above a statuesque Stephen Purches to head past Jamie Jones at the near post.

It came from a foul on Platt by Jordan Spence for which the youngster saw yellow, and a cross floated hopefully into the Orient area by Marc Tierney.

The Os fans chanted to rouse the team early in the second half. And it worked as the O's turned on the style with McGleish and Melligan each going close only to be denied by Dean Gerken in goal for Colchester.

Aside from rattling the cross bar through a Tierney long range strike, Colchester were quiet in the second half.

McGleish and Church combined to produce the move of the match on 76 minutes. From a up-field pass Church laid off the ball with a cute touch to McGleish who pinged a fine 35 yard half volley hard against the cross bar.

McGleish was at the heart of things for Orient's 79th minute winner. He slid in to nudge over the line Jimmy Smith's looping ball into the heart of the Colchester six-yard box, which had left Gerken in no man's land.

There was some diupute over whether the ball was across the white line when McGleish applied his touch, but one thing does look settled:

“We are staying up.”

Jones, Purches, Mkandawire, Melligan (sub Gray 65m) , Thornton, Terry, Daniels (booked 35m. sub Boyd 85m), Smith, Spence, McGleish, Church.

Subs: Morris, Saah, Gray, Cave-Brown, Boyd.

Attendance 4,685 of which 735 Colchester fans.