Justin Edinburgh praised the “strength, character and class” of Macauley Bonne after the striker’s winner gave Leyton Orient a slender 1-0 win over AFC Telford United in the first leg of their FA Trophy semi-final.

Bonne had been on a run of six games without a goal in all competitions but his strike early in the second half sees the O’s take an advantage into the second leg at New Bucks Head next Saturday.

Speaking to the club’s website after the game about the chances that the striker had, Edinburgh said: “I think that shows the strength, character and class of the player because other people might have hidden away from that but I think that just shows what he’s about.

“He keeps getting himself in those positions and that’s what good strikers do and I’m pleased that he got the winning goal today.”

While the O’s will be pleased to get through the game with the win, Edinburgh noted his slight disappointment that his side were not able to take a bigger advantage into the second leg of the tie.

He said: “We’ll always look at what we could try and do better. Perhaps the final pass or final finish could’ve been a little bit better, but I think in terms of general play and the way we controlled the game there was a lot of positives today.”

“We knew the opposition would be fired up but I thought we managed the game very well and I suppose we were unfortunate not to get a couple more goals, but we take a lead into next week and we’re delighted with that.”

Josh Koroma made his return to the pitch, recording his first appearance since the win over Maidstone United in January, and Edinburgh was delighted to see him as well as the other returnees record some game time.

He said: “I’m pleased for Josh, he’s been a big miss for us but that was another positive for us today. We had to give Dale Gorman minutes, Koroma’s come back, [James] Dayton’s got more minutes so there’s a lot of positives and we’re pleased to have them back.”