ORIENT manager Martin Ling has been delighted by his team's start to pre-season.

The O's have been back in training for two weeks and their boss is happy with the progress shown.

They travelled to Belgium for a four-day tour on Monday and Ling believes the trip away will help to get the O's to hit the ground running.

"The training has been excellent. and the players are looking really sharp," he said.

"The facilities here are great and it's been a pleasing start to the tour.

"It's massively important to get away from your usual training environment for a few days during a six-week pre-season, not just to break it up, but because we have 21 players and nine staff spending four days in each others' company - and that's great for camaraderie.

"Yesterday was a long day with the travelling and we trained in the afternoon. We had a double session today, which went really well, and we'll have another session tomorrow ahead of the game in the evening.

"The last time anyone played any kind of competitive match was in the first week of May, so it'll be nice for them to get out on the pitch tomorrow.

"It's all about match preparation and that's why the build up of playing games in pre-season is important to us."