Colchester United have received plenty of praise for their style of play, during John McGreal’s reign as head coach.

Opposition managers frequently talk up the U's and his side are pleasing on the eye.

But there have been times in the past where they have found themselves out-muscled by their League Two rivals.

That is why McGreal made a deliberate attempt to bring in players who can improve the physical area of their game, during the summer months.

And while it is only one game, their promising performance at Notts County in their season curtain-raiser suggests that their recruitment could prove fruitful.

As McGreal commented afterwards, his players at times managed the game themselves on the pitch and matched their hosts toe to toe.

That is hugely encouraging for the rest of the season, as often in recent memory the U’s have fallen short - both physically and mentally – when it has come to the crunch.

Colchester’s attacking intent and enterprise has been there for all to see during McGreal’s reign.

But now there is evidence that they can match that with the more industrial, less aesthetic side of the game.

New signings Harry Pell and Frank Nouble immediately added extra muscle to the Colchester starting line-up and that showed against the much-fancied Magpies.

There will be few teams who come away from Meadow Lane with anything meaningful this season, so the U’s point was hugely encouraging.

The maturity shown in their all-round display was also pleasing.

It was probably no coincidence that three seasoned league performers made up the spine of the team at the weekend – Pell, Nouble and skipper Luke Prosser.

All three have had plenty of experience of going to tough away grounds and grinding out results.

Not that Colchester merely scraped a draw against Notts County – far from it.

The U’s had their chances and looked menacing in attack throughout the majority of the contest, while restricting their hosts to few opportunities.

It is crucial that they do that for the whole of the campaign, if they are to make a sustained challenge for promotion.

But it is a case of so far, so good for Colchester, who followed up an uplifting pre-season with a good opening-day result and performance.

The loss of Kane Vincent-Young hours before kick-off was a blow.

But it seems as though we have not heard the last of his ‘will he or won’t he sign’ saga.

No matter what has happened this summer, keeping hold of the young defender would be a massive boost for the U’s.

But even without Vincent-Young, the U’s display at Notts County offers cautionary evidence that they have a squad that they can now compete with the best in the division.