DANNY Cowley admits his Colchester United side must stop conceding ‘soft goals’ if they are to win football matches.

The U’s played out a second successive 1-1 draw in League Two this afternoon after sharing the spoils with Bromley, at the JobServe Community Stadium.

Colchester fell behind to Michael Cheek’s penalty midway through the first half, after Ellis Iandolo had fouled Nyamabu Dinanga in the box.

READ MORE: Match report as U's play out home draw with Bromley

But they secured a point through substitute Owura Edwards, who converted Jack Payne’s cross at the far post on the hour mark.

U’s boss Cowley said: “I think we did enough to win the game but I understand why we didn’t.

“We had a really good way into the game and started really well.

“We asked lots of questions of them but then just gave a goal away from nowhere.

“I hate talking about individual errors because I always think for a manager, it sounds such a copout and for us, it’s always a collective.

(Image: STEVE BRADING)

“I pick the players, so I have some responsibility for the errors as well but we had this issue last year and it’s a problem that we need to try to resolve, because you just can’t give teams soft goals like that.

“They just kicked it forward, it went in behind the defensive line, we’re ready to deal with it, we then trip over it and lose it, we try to recorrect it in a moment and the referee ends up giving a soft penalty.

“It was a soft penalty and I think we had seven or eight penalty shouts – I don’t remember having as many.

“But we have to stop giving away soft goals because if we don’t, for all of our good play and performances, we won’t get value.”

READ MORE: Colchester United 1 Bromley 1 - as it happened

Colchester had hit the woodwork in the fourth minute when Bromley defender Kamarl Grant's header towards his own goal was tipped onto the bar by goalkeeper Grant Smith.

But in the 18th minute, Cheek's effort rattled a post.

After falling behind, Jack Payne and Samson Tovide both went close for the U’s before half-time but Matt Macey made two fine saves to deny Cheek and Ashley Charles, before Edwards equalised.

(Image: STEVE BRADING)

Cowley continued: “We knew that we were playing against a big physical team and when you do, you can’t just kick it down their throat because they’re very good at dealing with it.

“You have to build more and lure them out.

“They had five in their defensive line, so we had to try and lure them out and I thought we did that really well actually.

“But when you do that, there’s more risk of you losing the ball.

“We’re not so worried about that one moment because that is all they’ve had in the whole game if you think about our control and our dominance and how we played today.

“There was a lot to like but in the history of football, these are the rules; the team that scores the first goal go on and win, 75 per cent of the time so we have to stop giving away soft goals.

“If we’re honest, we’ve given a soft goal away against Harrogate and a soft goal away against Bromley in games where we’ve been the better team and should win.”