Colchester United head coach John McGreal hailed his side's 'fantastic effort' after they ran out 2-1 winners at Forest Green Rovers, this afternoon.

The U's marked their first-ever visit to the New Lawn with a deserved win, their third in a row in League Two.

Goals at the beginning of each half from Drey Wright and Ben Stevenson sealed them victory, after Reuben Reid had equalised for the hosts from the spot late in the first half.

McGreal said: “I was really pleased with the effort that the boys put in.

“After a performance against the top of the league side on a really heavy pitch last Friday to get the points, we lost a couple of bodies for this match and had to change things around.

“But for Brandon Comley and Courtney Senior to come here and put in the shift that they did was fantastic and it was a fantastic effort to get the three points.

“Forest Green had won their last six out of seven and have big threats throughout the team.

“We got a fantastic goal early on – it was definitely the quickest goal that we’ve scored in my time since I’ve been here.

“We should have got another couple to be fair and 2-0 would have been a better scoreline.

“We then gave a soft penalty away – a ball into the middle of our box and then we’re on the stretch.

“We went 2-1 up early in the second half but we should be putting the game to bed and going 3-1 or 4-1 up with the opportunities that we had.

“We knew that they would come at us because they needed the win just as much as we did but it was a really good all-round away performance."

The win leaves Colchester four points off the play-off positions with five games remaining but boss McGreal is not looking too far ahead.

“We’ve won games of football and the team is playing with a little bit of freedom," added the U's head coach.

“I don’t want to take that away by hitting them with targets.

“We know that we have the top-of-the-league team in Accrington coming to us on Saturday and that’s our only target at the moment.

“We’re looking to try and improve on what we did last season by winning games of football.

“We’ve hit a bit of form and now we need to recover to go again for this coming Saturday."