ZAK Dearnley was at the double in Oldham’s draw at Leyton Orient and Dino Maamria is impressed with his blossoming partnership with Danny Rowe.

Rowe was signed from National League AFC Fylde in January and former Manchester United youngster Dearnley also returned to the club last month having been a free agent for the first half of the season.

Latics boss Maamria is therefore only expecting the pair to get better in the weeks and months to come, Dearnley having scored three in his last three games.

“Those two, we’ve got to remember, Rowe has been playing in non-league and he’s still catching up with the League Two level,” said Maamria, whose side are 19th in League Two ahead of hosting Newport County on Saturday.

“Dearnley has been out seven months so those two are still growing.

“Zak got two and I thought that Rowey could have easily got two with a chance late in the first-half where he just missed the top corner and the chance late in the second-half.

“Both of them really deserved to be on the scoresheet. The partnership going forward is very pleasing and the more they play together the better they will get.”

The Latics boss was forced to make changes to his starting XI at Brisbane Road, with Zak Mills doing a good job at filling in at full-back as another man with an Old Trafford connection, loanee Cameron Borthwick-Jackson, dropped to the bench after his partner gave birth in the run-up to the game.

Maamria was largely pleased with his side's defensive show, from back to front, the main frustration being the cheap free-kick conceded for Orient's second goal 10 minutes into the second half. “We changed the team slightly," added the Oldham boss.

"Cameron (Borthwick-Jackson) had a baby this week and he didn’t have enough rest, so we played Zak (Mills) there and I thought Zak did really well at left-back.

“The back four were solid and I thought we were solid throughout and the work rate of the team was really good.

“In the first half we had a lot of chances.

"We could have punished them more especially in transition, but we didn’t do that.”