Recent results have seen Gillingham's youngsters creating plenty of chances without scoring the goals their efforts deserved but not this afternoon as the Under-18's signed off for their mid-winter break with a desperate display.

The visitor's sole chance came three minutes into what would prove to be a remarkably turgid outing for both sides, Tom Murphy's cross field ball falling invitingly for Charlie Stimson, but the striker could not find the finish.

From that point onwards the O's were in the ascendency though never really looked like scoring, their goal eventually arriving in somewhat fortuitous circumstances on 31 minutes as Harry Beautyman took advantage of a lapse in the Gills defence to slot past Conor Quinn.

Both sides went through the motions for the remainder of the 90 minutes, neither team looked capable of adding to their tally and the final whistle was a welcome relief to all concerned.

Manager Mark Patterson pulled no punches in his assessment of the Gills display, "Overall I thought we were poor. Even when we've lost games quite heavily I've praised the team for what they've tried to do but on Saturday we were just poor.

"Possibly they were looking towards Christmas and thinking that they have a break coming up but out of the eleven that started maybe only two or three came out with any praise."

Gillingham: Conor Quinn, Olly Bartrum, Connor Essam, Callum Davies, James Brown (Ryan Benniman 45), Liam Geering, Dean Rance, Sam Fisher (Alex Brown 60), Josh Sargeant (Nathan Nyafli 55), Charlie Stimson, Tom Murphy