SAMMIE Szmodics bagged the all-important winner to send Colchester United into the top three – and immediately dedicated the win to his injured team-mate Luke Norris.

Szmodics’ well-taken strike just before half-time clinched the U’s a 1-0 victory over visitors Swindon Town.

But their success was tarnished by Norris’s injury, which led to their leading goalscorer being stretchered off just before half-time and subsequently being taken to hospital.

Colchester are due to learn more about the extent of the striker's injury today and Szmodics said: “Luke’s a good lad – he’s our top goalscorer and he brings so much to the team.

“He was in a fair bit of pain so the three points and the performance were for him.”

Szmodics grabbed Colchester’s winner in the fifth minute of first-half stoppage-time – and revealed he was confident of finding the net.

“The Swindon players actually wanted the first half to end, as there had been two minutes already added on,” said the former Stanway School pupil, who has now scored six times this season.

“I was bantering to the referee saying ‘I can score here’ and he was laughing.

“Noubs (Frank Nouble) has done really well to hold off two or three of their defenders.

“He’s cut the ball back and I’ve still got quite a lot to do but I’ve found the bottom corner.

“You haven’t really got time to think about it.

“People say it’s an easy finish but with three or four people running across the goal, you’ve still got to put it in the corner and I did that.

“I’ve only ever scored down the South Stand end which was my first-ever (league) goal, on Boxing Day (against Gillingham, in 2014), so it was more of a relief to get one at that end.

“I felt I needed to score – I feel like I’m in good form with my assists and all-round game play and goals come as a bonus.

“I’d gone three or four games without a goal so it was special to get one.”

Colchester followed up their win over leaders Lincoln City with another win against Swindon, much to Szmodics’ delight.

The 23-year-old added: “After beating the top-of-the-league team, we knew that it was going to be tough coming here and putting in a different type of performance.

“But if you look at the last two games, we’ve got six points.

“We’ve shown that we can do both sides of the game, with performances like that (against Swindon) and against Lincoln and hopefully we can keep that going.”