COLCHESTER United boss John McGreal admits his side need to rediscover their consistency following their 2-1 home defeat to Stevenage this afternoon.

The U’s were beaten at home for the first time in League Two since September, despite Luke Prosser’s late strike setting up a grandstand finish, after an early own goal from goalkeeper Rene Gilmartin and Danny Newton’s strike ten minutes before half-time had put the visitors in command.

McGreal said: “We need that consistency which we haven’t got at the minute.

“We need that to stay in and around that top seven and be successful.

“It’s unfortunate that other teams around us have lost too and we haven’t been able to capitalise on it but there’s another game coming up quickly.

“The fans were terrific for us today – a big number turned out and it was just unfortunate that we weren’t able to get the win for them.”

Colchester have dropped to fourth after the defeat but boss McGreal was not too disheartened with his side’s overall display.

“It was a frustrating afternoon result-wise but performance-wise, I think we’re nearly there from how we’ve playing of late,” said the U’s boss.

“We gave ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb after going 2-0 but we stuck to our guns and we dominated the game really.

“They scored quite early and their second goal was a bit of a killer.

“Their first goal was a bit unfortunate after it hit Rene and went in.

“We might have looked at their second goal for a foul but the referee has reffed how he feels he has to ref the game today.

“We changed things at half-time and tried to get something out of the game.

“We felt we needed a little bit urgency in the second half even though we felt we dominated in the first half.

“We had different attacks from different areas in the second half.

“We just wanted that earlier goal but it didn’t come.

“We had opportunities that we could have made more of and got into some good positions but were wasteful but it wasn’t for the lack of trying and the boys put a shift in.

“You have to give the opposition credit and they got everyone behind the ball late on.

“They defended it really well and I thought (Scott Cuthbert) was very good for them today.”