Eagles super-striker Clinton Morrison came through with the goods yet again as Palace survived an early scare to ease into the next round of the Worthington Cup.

The Palace hitman bagged another brace, along with Tommy Black, to secure vic-tory against a gutsy Orient outfit.

The east - end side gave the visitors a torrid time in the first half and took the lead on 29 minutes through former Tot-tenham striker Jeff Minton who volleyed Scott Oakes' 50 yard pass over Palace keeper Alex Kolinko.

The equaliser came five minutes later when Clinton Morri-son latched on to a Tommy Black through ball, outran O's defender Simon Downer to score from close range.

Orient regained the lead three minutes af-ter that when another former Spurs man Scott Houghton slammed a Kolinko punch home from the the edge of the area, to give the third divi-sion side a 2-1 half time lead.

As with the second half at Rotherham, Palace upped the pace and found another gear that helped them brush past their op-ponents, though Ori-ent didn't just lay down.

The second Eagles equaliser came when Tommy Black scored from close range after a Morrison shot was parried by O's keeper Ashley Bayes.

Orient then twice hit woodwork, as de-fender Dean Smith ran 50 yards to crash a 25 yard drive against the bar, which was followed by Minton smashing a shot against an up-right.

Palace took advan-tage of Orient's bad luck and score twice in the last 10 minutes. Morrison arrogantly back-heeled the Ea-gle's third after Ru-bins scuffed his shot, then Black completed an excellent second half when he slid home a through ball.

Steve Bruce com-mented: "Leyton Ori-ent started much better and deserved their half timie lead, but the longer the game went on the more comfortable we looked and on bal-ance we deserved it."

Bruce was also quick to praise Clinton Morrison: "He was brilliant. He can be anything he wants to be and the sky's the limit."

August 23, 2001 11:23