PHIL Parkinson praised a ‘colossus effort’ from his Wrexham side after they beat his former club Colchester United 2-1 despite playing for more than an hour with only ten men.
Wrexham were already ahead through Elliot Lee's fourth-minute strike against his old club before George Evans was sent off for a bad foul on Cameron McGeehan, just before the half hour.
However, Zach Mitchell's own goal in the 70th minute doubled the Reds' lead and although Jayden Fevrier netted in the 89th minute for the U's, it was not enough to prevent the hosts from securing victory.
Parkinson said: "That’s a colossus effort from the lads and I’m very proud of the performance today.
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“We got the early goal and then the sending off; Colchester have got some good technical players and some dangerous players, in and around the box.
“In the first half, from the sending off to half-time I thought we sat a bit deep and didn’t engage in our own final third or the middle third or get enough passes in.
“We said to the players at half-time that we don’t want to play survival football and just sit back and wait for them to score.
“We’re good enough to make passes in the game and I felt we did that really well in the second period.
“We pushed our wing-backs on to their full-backs and defended as we would normally defend.
“We showed a nice coolness in possession at times and it’s a real effort from the lads.
"Throughout the season, you get so many different games and challenges - today was a different problem for us to solve and I thought we did it really well."
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Lee, who enjoyed two loan spells at Colchester, netted on his birthday to open the scoring for Wrexham.
It was the former West Ham United youngster's 12th goal of the campaign, on his 29th birthday.
"I'm really pleased for Elliot, another goal for him," said Parkinson.
"He reacts like a striker; he was a striker and he might still say he still is a striker.
"In the box, he's got that instinct and things just tend to fall to him.
"It's a great return for him but not just that but his work for the team was exceptional again and it's a great birthday present for him to get a goal."
On Evans' red card, Parkinson added: "It's disappointing.
"He'll miss three games for a straight red and that happens; George has been brilliant for us and it's his first sending off of his career.
"He's frustrated but it happens and we move on."
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