Barry-Murphy relieved to win 'stressful' Orient thriller

Brian Barry-Murphy was not the only person at Cardiff City Stadium who will have found his team's brilliantly chaotic 4-3 win over Leyton Orient to be "stressful".

Neutrals could rejoice in an enthralling, end-to-end encounter on Saturday which could easily have produced more goals for both sides.

But for Cardiff head coach Barry-Murphy, his Orient counterpart Richie Wellens, supporters of either team or simply anyone with a vested interest in the game, it must have been torture at times.

The home side had led 1-0 and 2-1, only to find themselves 3-2 down against their impressive opponents, before roaring back with two goals in two second-half minutes to secure a memorable victory.

"The overriding feeling from myself is one of immense pride for the players, especially in the second half," said Barry-Murphy.

"Again, I don't know what went on here over the last couple of years. But it's quite a difficult thing for the players when you give away goals of the nature we did. The second goal was a crazy goal - multiple ricochets and deflections - and I'd just put that down to the nature of the game and the anxiety in the performance.

"It was pretty stressful. We made it stressful for ourselves but also the opponents did. For the players, you saw us at our best and most dangerous when we flooded forward and really freed ourselves up and attacked in wide areas, getting beyond the Leyton Orient defence.

"Then you saw Callum Robinson and Yousef [Salech] become so dangerous. There's so much we can learn from the first half and from the second half."

The win ended a run of two successive home defeats for Cardiff – their only losses of this season in all competitions – and moved them up to third in League One, two points behind leaders Stevenage.

Barry-Murphy's men conceded only two goals in their opening seven league games but have shipped seven in their most recent four.

The Irishman had warned his side beforehand about the threat Orient would pose – describing Wellens as the best manager in League One – but he was concerned by some defensive aspects of his team's performance.

"I felt strongly throughout the first half that we misinterpreted what we needed from the game," said Barry-Murphy.

"We played a lot of short passes close to our goal and put ourselves under a lot of pressure against a team who we identified as being really aggressive and would apply high pressure.

"We conceded a record number of turnovers close to our goal - since we've been together - so by nature they were close to our goal.

"And you saw Aaron Connolly go through on goal and score. But it was pretty high-risk stuff from us when it didn't need to be. We just didn't interpret correctly how to get the ball forward quicker."