ORIENT skipper Stephen Purches believes Saturday's comeback against Scunthorpe United demonstrated the character his team needs to put their indifferent start to the season behind them.

Purches scored his first Brisbane Road goal to help the O's to a 2-2 draw and having stopped a run of three consecutive defeats, the Ilford-born defender is keen to push on.

He said: "We've said all along that we've got a good, honest bunch of lads here and we showed a lot of character on Saturday.

"Things didn't quite go how we wanted in the first half - I didn't think we were a million miles off it, but the set pieces obviously killed us.

"But we took it to them in the second half, gave 100% and sometimes you get what you deserve when you put the effort in.

"Getting the goal so early after half time was a huge lift.  We could see that they were rattled after the sending off and we used our extra man pretty well."

Purches was delighted with his goal and he revealed that he is more than happy to play at left back - a position he played at for Bournemouth earlier in his career.

"It was nice to score my first goal here at Brisbane Road," he added.  "When you grow up as a kid and come here and watch players score goals, you want to do it yourself so I was delighted on Saturday.

"It's taken a bit of time, but I like getting forward and into the box.  Hopefully I will do that more and more this season.

"I played quite a lot at left back when I was at Bournemouth so I'm used to it.  We used my side a bit more in the second half and it gives you an opportunity to cut in.

"You seem to join in a lot more because you're coming on to your favoured side and that was what happened for the goal."