Notts County 1-1 Leyton Orient

We're in the final lap now for the promotion places, and the sprint is on. The reward for those who finish in the podium positions is the opportunity to win a place in the Championship. Notts are one of those teams that are lagging behind the leading pack, but just as it seemed like they were building momentum and maybe, just maybe, would be able to edge into contention, they stumbled against Leyton Orient and the gap may now prove too wide to finish into the play-offs.

Chris Kiwomya once against tinkered with his formation and began the game in 4-4-2, as Haydn Hollis partnered Dean Leacock in centre-back, Gary Liddle moved to right-back and Jeff Hughes was dropped to the bench.

The O's started the game as the brighter side, and within ten minutes had the ball in the back of the net, but Charlie MacDonald was ruled offside.

They continued pressuring Notts, who were barely able to even venture out of their own half and were guilty of losing and giving away possession a number of times. However, Orient weren't able to muster anything more meaningful than long range shots.

A good break from Notts saw Francois Zoko find Jamal Campbell-Ryce, but O's keeper Jamie Jones claimed the ball from the cross.

On 32 minutes, Notts took the lead in impressive fashion. Boucaud, Bishop, Zoko and Judge combined to split open the Orient defence before the skipper curled a great finish past Jones. 1-0 to the Magpies.

Rattled, the O's came back all guns blazing, Jimmy Smith smashing the crossbar shortly after the restart.

John Cofie, the Man Utd loanee, had to be withdrawn on 40 minutes as he suffered a facial injury, suspected to be a fractured cheekbone. Yoann Arquin came on for the youngster.

Dean Leacock came close to doubling the Notts lead, while winger Moses Odubajo fired wide in injury time for Orient.

Zoko was replaced by Jeff Hughes at half time, and the Northern Irishman's pace was instrumental in setting up Arquin early on in the second half, but the forward fired straight at Jones.

After a few half-decent attempts by the home side, Notts then proceeded to undo all their good work so far as Leacock cynically fouled MacDonald in the box. Kevin Lisbie kept his composure in front of the loudly booing Notts fans and fired a cool, calm shot past Bartosz Bialkowski to draw the game level.

The game opened up as both teams desperately chased a winner. Sadly for Notts, some of the issues of old resurfaced, as the forwards struggled to really test the away keeper, either firing wide or directly at him.

Andre Boucaud attempted a powerful long-range shot but it whistled past the right-hand post, while in the final minute, JCR was denied after connecting with a defence-splitting chip by Alan Judge. At the other end, Hollis, having been superb all game, denied Romain Vincelot with a last-ditch block to keep the scoreline at 1-1.

The final whistle finally blew on a frustrating performance which promised so much but delivered only a draw, which leaves Notts in tenth place. There are ten more games to go and Notts are seven points adrift of the play-offs, so you never know what could happen, but there is no more room for slip-ups now if Notts are to better last season's finish and squeeze into the coveted top six.