Colchester United head coach John McGreal said he was 'devastated' after his side were beaten in the League Two play-off semi-final by Exeter City.

The U's were beaten 3-1 on the night after extra-time in the second leg at St James Park, to lose 3-2 on aggregate.

It was a cruel way for their season to end and boss McGreal could not hide his disappointment at the final whistle.

He said: "I'm devastated.

"This is the hardest interview I've done and we really fancied our chances.

"We let ourselves down a little bit at the start of the game most definitely and we had to wait for the drinks break to change things around.

"I thought we then got a really good foothold in the game and at the start of the second half we started slowly and they got the goal.

"Courtney (Senior) came on and injected a little bit of energy and pace, we got a goal back and it could be a really, really different interview at this moment in time because I thought the last 20-25 minutes of that second half, we were the most dominant team and we should be winning the game of football, there's no question of it."

Colchester had a glorious chance to win the game in normal time when Kwame Poku raced through on goal with only Jonny Maxted to beat.

But the Exeter keeper denied the U's attacker and the Grecians scored again in extra-time through Ryan Bowman, to win it.

"I really feel for Kwame - we've had to pick him up in there," added McGreal.

"He's an 18 year old boy and he's a tremendous talent - he'll go from strength to strength with that.

"It's an opportunity for him and he's put himself on a great platform in front of the Sky cameras and shown some great bits of skill, as well."