Tony Humes was full of praise for his Colchester United players after they beat Gillingham 2-1 to knock the Kent side off the top of the table.

The U's made it seven points out of a possible nine from the previous three games with an excellent victory, their first at the Weston Homes Community Stadium this season.

Gavin Massey gave the U's an early lead and although Luke Norris quickly equalised, Callum Harriott's fine goal on the half hour proved enough to win the game for Colchester, with keeper Jamie Jones saving McDonald's penalty.

Humes said: “It was a difficult game against a good team but it was a fantastic win.

"It was a feisty game and there were a lot of yellow cards in the first half.

“As a team we worked our socks off and got our rewards in the end.

“We showed we were a team out there and we put a shift in to get those three points and you can see it matters to us.

“We’ve got some good players and we have a pattern of play that we want to use.

“We’ve got speed, pace and we counter-attack with players who can cause the opposition problems.”

“Gillingham are a good team and you can see why they’re top of the league.

“They had great energy and quality and put teams under pressure.

“But where we haven’t defended so well in recent weeks you have to praise the back four, because I thought they were outstanding.

“We had a bit of a jittery start but as the game went on, the centre-halves did what they are there for."

Humes reserved special words of praise for goalkeeper Jamie Jones, after he saved Cody McDonald's first-half penalty to preserve the U's lead.

"You can say he won the game for us," added Humes.

"At 2-1, they got the penalty and you don't know what's going to happen after that.

"It gives our back four a lot of confidence with him there and doing that kind of thing.

"The more he saves, the more pressure is on the penalty taker in games to come.

"He's very calm and talks to the back four very well - he's a great acquisition for us."

For five pages of coverage of the U's win over Gillingham, see Monday's Daily Gazette.