Colchester United manager John Ward admitted Notts County deserved their 4-1 win at Meadow Lane.

The U's tumbled to a heavy defeat on the final day of the season, with Anthony Wordsworth's fine stoppage-time strike proving only a consolation.

Goals from Jeff Hughes, Daniel Bogdanovic, Alan Judge and Kieron Freeman helped give the Magpies a big win, as they just missed out on the League One play-offs.

Despite the defeat, Colchester finished the season in tenth place.

Ward said: “We’re really disappointed that we finished on a low.

“But they deserved to win; they’re a good side and they took their goals well.

“We had one or two chances that we could have done better with but didn’t.

“It was a day for them and they finished off their moves pretty well.

“We could have done better with the first couple of goals and the third one was an out of this world strike that you would applaud yourself if it wasn’t against your team.

“We said at half-time that we did a lot of decent things in the first period and get a result out of the second 45 minutes.

“I suppose we drew the second half as a 1-1 but we lost the whole game.

“The way it went it was their day and they deserved to win."

See Monday's Gazette for more reaction, along with a full match report and pictures, from Colchester United's defeat at Notts County.