HAYDEN Mullins says the prospect of a Wembley final is a big incentive for his Colchester United players as they embark on another Papa John’s Trophy challenge.

The U’s host League One side Gillingham tonight (kick-off 7.30pm) in their Southern Group A opener, as they attempt to get off to a winning start in the competition.

U’s head coach Mullins (pictured below) wants to see his Colchester side challenge in their group, which also includes neighbours Ipswich Town and West Ham United under-21s.

Mullins said: “It’s a competition we want to try and do well in.

“If you get to the final, you get a game at Wembley which is fantastic.

“It would be good for the club and everyone with morale if we can go as far as we can.

“The competition definitely does give you scope to look at the younger players.

“It’s good for the under-23 sides in the competition and for their development but it’s also good for our lads to go into those kind of fixtures and see where our boys measure up with that.

“I’m sure a lot of the young lads will be involved, some will be in and around the bench, some might start.”

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Colchester’s game against Gillingham tonight will be their first in 11 days, following the postponement of their League Two home clash with Sutton United last weekend due to Covid cases in the visitors’ camp.

The Gills were also without a fixture last weekend and Mullins says he wants his side to perform well.

He said: “We’re quite fresh from having no game at the weekend, which is good.

“We’ve really been able to have a look at Tuesday and attack the game, so it’ll be a good fixture for us.

“We want to be competitive and we want to give it a good go.

“We know that they’re a good side.

“We played them in pre-season after they’d had a long lay-off after Covid and it was a tough game then, so we’re expecting it to be the same again.

“It will be competitive, which is good.

“We’ll be facing a side in Gillingham who themselves didn’t play at the weekend, so they’ll be fairly strong I would imagine.

“It’s about us dealing with that.”

Colchester were left without a game last weekend, after their match against Sutton was called off less than 24 hours before kick-off.

The U’s instead had an in-house game at the Community Stadium, as they prepare for a busy few days which will see them host Gillingham and then make the long trip to play Barrow, on Friday night.

Mullins added: “The most disappointing thing for us was that we were prepared for the game.

“It would have been a good game for us, obviously after coming off the back of two away games to come back home and really attack the game.

“I felt that we’d had really good preparation in the week leading up to the game, so to find out on Friday evening that the game was off was a bit of a blow, if I’m honest.

“But we had a really good training session on Saturday morning where we tried to put the boys through their paces.

“We gave them a bit of a day off on Sunday and we were back in on Monday, in preparation for the game on Tuesday.

“There’s not much you can really plan in that situation – we couldn’t get a friendly against anyone else at that late stage so we had to try and get together and have a bit of an internal fixture.

“That was good and went really well; there were loads of positive bits out of it and we got some really good work into the boys.

“The best thing about it was that we could control it and we have another game on Friday against Barrow, which is a long trip up after the Tuesday.

“We want to keep the momentum going and hopefully Tuesday will help do that and it will roll into Friday.”