Phil Brown believes that his Barrow side can stave off relegation from League Two by hard work and winning their four remaining home games.

On Saturday they suffered a 2-0 defeat at Leyton Orient, for whom Paul Smyth opened the scoring in the second-half before Ruel Sotiriou netted to take his tally for the season into double figures.

“You get your rewards from hard work,” Brown said.

“I know if we keep doing what we did in the first half, we will get something – but we have to make our remaining four home games a fortress.

“I am delighted with the response I have seen so far.

“We were in the game for long periods and I have to say, it was a piece of absolute magic from their lad to score the first goal.

“It was a goal you’d expect to see in the Premier League and it shocked everybody in the stadium I think. For the player to try and attempt that was credit to him. I couldn’t believe from that angle he decided to take it on but that’s what we are up against.

“We had two teams today who have changed managers. They did their change four or five games ago and you could tell they are playing with a lot of confidence.

“They made the game difficult for us by putting balls into areas that can hurt you.

“The ball for their goal was quality and that’s what I am after.”

Orient manager Richie Wellens, who took control at the start of this month, watched his side collect their third win in a row and has yet to taste defeat in his five matches at the helm.

“Paul Smyth’s goal was fantastic,” he said. “A very difficult angle but he meant it for sure.

“He has the potential to be the best player in the league. Injuries have frustrated him this season but I said I want to finish the season strongly with him, manage his minutes and get him ready for next season so he is firing.

“I thought our supporters were fantastic. Every time we moved it around, the atmosphere in the ground was excellent and we have potential to build this club forward and be successful.

“I have to take my hat off the players because we haven’t worked on anything Thursday or Friday because in Mark Cooper’s last few games, they changed shape four times so it was difficult to know how they would approach the game and go about things.

“Phil Brown has come in and I didn’t want to overload the players with information.

“We always have pace and power in our team and I felt we could have scored more.”