NOAH Chilvers says it was a ‘special feeling’ to score in front of Colchester United’s home supporters for the first time.

The talented 20-year-old’s superb late strike salvaged a point for the U’s, in their 1-1 draw with Bristol Rovers.

Chilvers had already netted four times for Colchester, prior to bagging their vital equaliser against the Pirates.

However, the U’s academy product’s previous goals had either come in last season’s behind-closed-doors games at the JobServe Community Stadium or away from home - making his strike against Rovers one to remember in more ways than one.

Chilvers said: “It’s my first goal in front of the fans so it was a special feeling to do that.

“I’m buzzing that I could come on and help the team.

“It was a decent finish.

“We do a lot of it in training, balls to the edge of the box and things like that.

“When all of the big boys go up, they’re obviously hoping for a header but all of the time, I’m always hoping that it’s going to drop to me on the edge because it’s an opportunity at the end of the day.

“There’s a lot of bodies in the way but I just managed to find the gap and thankfully, it went how I wanted it to go and went in.”

Chilvers’ 88th-minute goal rescued a point for Colchester, after Brett Pitman had given Rovers the lead just before the hour mark.

The visitors finished with nine men after Cian Harries and Trevor Clarke were both dismissed, the latter following an altercation with U’s right-back Junior Tchamadeu who was also red carded.

Chilvers said: “It felt like a bit of a strange game really.

“It had quite a slow tempo and I think that’s the way they came to play.

“They tried to play out from the back and at times, we nearly nicked it early on in the game and then they settled into it.

“We maybe got sucked into playing at their tempo.

“Their goal maybe gave us a kick up the backside and when we injected our tempo into it and the way that we can play, that’s when things started to happen.

“We showed a lot of character within the group to ride the storm and I felt we ended on top and that we were going to go on and win.

“I think if the game had carried on in the pattern it was going, we’d have won it but we have to try and start it earlier.

“Last week, it was all a bit doom and gloom outside of the club with the home form especially so four points from two games is not too bad.

“We obviously would have like six points but we can take that and move on to the weekend and hopefully back it up with another win.”

Chilvers found himself on the bench for the Bristol Rovers clash, after being replaced by Sylvester Jasper in the Colchester starting line-up.

“The gaffer spoke to me (on Monday) and said it was a tough decision to leave me out after the weekend but Sylv (Jasper) came on and scored and did really well,” said Chilvers, who has made 69 league and cup appearances for the U’s since making his senior debut for them in March, 2019.

“It’s good for the gaffer to have those decisions to make.

“All you can do is come on and make an impact and I feel I did that regardless of the goal and the goal was the icing on the cake really.”