Albion 2 Orient 0 Albion are still on the crest of a wave, despite a Withdean pitch which threatened to undermine their undefeated run.

The Seagulls refused to be bogged down by the conditions, rediscovering their recent fluency in the second half to run out impressive winners.

The state of the playing surface at Albion's temporary home has been an on-going problem ever since they moved in.

It gave cause for concern again on Saturday, bearing in mind the season is still in its infancy.

The players splashed through surface water during the warm-up. There were also heavy patches which prevented the ball from running properly, particularly on the flanks either side of the centre circle.

Manager Micky Adams felt it played a major part in a poor first half.

"I think the conditions caught us both out," he said. "Both teams like to pass and play, but in certain areas you couldn't do that.

"We were a little apprehensive about the state of the pitch.

"Three areas of it concerned me last season and they are still concerning me this season.

"There has been a lot of adverse weather, but I thought the pitch should have been better prepared."

Adams places great importance on the mental side of the game.

Most of his half-time team talk revolved around convincing the players they could still re-produce the cultured approach so apparent during their dramatic transformation and encouraged by Adams on the training ground.

"I asked them at half time to be more confident in possesion," he revealed. "In the second half they were.

"When I first came to this club I was tagged with the long ball.

"Maybe that's because I had a number two called Alan Cork, a member of the Wimbledon Crazy Gang who used the long ball to great effect.

"But I am my own man. Anyone who watches us on the training ground will see I'm a great believer in getting the ball down, passing and playing.

"Some of our movement was terrific. In the first half our wide men, Gary Hart and Nathan Jones, were not close enough to give Bobby Zamora the support he needed.

"They did that in the second half and we looked more effective because of it."

The opening period was, frankly, a non-event except for the last three minutes.

Paul Rogers, continuing to relish his more advanced midfield role, anticipated Paul Watson's in-swinging cross to nod Albion ahead at the near post.

The quality of the delivery from Watson was instrumental in the captain's second goal in four games and second in successive seasons against Orient.

Teams tend to be most vulnerable when they have just scored. Carl Griffiths, so often a thorn in the Seagulls' side in the past, almost turned that theory into reality again within two minutes when his volley hit a post.

It was just about the only time all afternoon that Griffiths found room to manouevre, so effective once more were Danny Cullip and Matthew Wicks.

A fourth clean sheet in a row was the foundation for this latest success. It is now an incredible 376 minutes since Mark Cartwright conceded a goal.

An injury stopped Cartwright from kicking in the closing stages, but his shut-out sequence was never seriously threatened after the break by the below-par visitors.

Instead Albion, buoyed by Roger's deadlock breaker, turned on the style.

A header from Hart forced Ashley Bayes into a fine reflex save and Zamora went close on more than one occasion before supplying the clincher.

He laid the ball back invitingly for Kerry Mayo to calmly side-foot his first goal of the campaign from a central position just inside the box.

Mayo is Albion's seventh different scorer this season, a fact not lost on Adams.

"One of the most pleasing aspects is that we are not relying on one man to score goals", he said.

"Bobby Zamora's had a spell now where he hasn't scored much, but the beauty of him is that he is a team man.

"At the beginning of the season we didn't have enough team men. People were playing for themselves.'

Adams must have been thinking of that dire home defeat by Kidderminster at the end of August.

Albion have won five and drawn two since then and reeled off four clean sheet victories on the trot, a record which will surely earn him the second manager-of-the-month accolade of his reign.