Gillingham 2 Leyton Orient 0: Manager Neil Harris on achieving survival in League 2 with a win over the league leaders at Priestfield

Beating the league leaders completed Gillingham’s survival bid to the delight of manager Neil Harris.

The Gills have been in promotion form since the turn of the year but an abysmal first half of the season meant it’s still been a fight to avoid the drop. A 2-0 win over Leyton Orient means Harris’ men are now mathematically safe from relegation with three games left to play.

“It is a great way to stay in the division,” Harris said. “We have beaten them 2-0 and there will be a lot of fanfare of how the game finished and rightly so, that’s the football rules, we can’t do anything about that, but we have just beaten Leyton Orient 2-0 at home to secure our status.

“It’s a fantastic result, a brilliant performance, well done to the players.”

Gillingham were under pressure early on as the league leaders dominated but a red card for Orient’s Omar Beckles for a foul on George Lapslie gave his side a free-kick on the edge of the box which Alex MacDonald stuck into the net.

Cheye Alexander scored from the penalty spot on 76 minutes to double the lead. A power-cut moments later led to a lengthy delay but the Gills had done enough, the win moving them up to 17th in the table.

“I wouldn’t say it was our best performance but on paper I would say it was our best result,” Harris said.

“For 12 minutes we were poor and they were excellent, they kept the ball, the game changer was the red card obviously, that put us in the ascendency. They still had players who can damage you one versus one but Glenn Morris (the Gills keeper) has not had to make a save in the 90 minutes.

“The game management was really good after the red card. I am delighted.

“I would like to place on record my congratulations to Richie Wellens (whose team were promoted