DANNY Cowley praised the spirit of his Colchester United side after they struck late to draw 1-1 at Barrow this afternoon.
Lyle Taylor netted in the second minute of stoppage time to clinch an away point for the U’s, after they had trailed to Elliot Newby’s first-half strike.
Colchester have now gone nine games without a win in all competitions but they showed character to remain competitive throughout an even encounter at Holker Street and claim another away point.
READ MORE: Match report as Colchester strike late to draw at Barrow
U’s boss Cowley said: “You might be able to question elements of our game and our performance but you definitely can’t question the spirit of the group.
“It was nothing more than we deserved.
“I spoke to a lot of the supporters before – some travelled up yesterday, some travelled up seven hours this morning and it was incredible to at least share the goal and then the moment afterwards with them.
“They’ve been incredibly loyal in the most testing of circumstances.
“I don’t suppose it will make that seven hours any quicker but it might make it a little bit of an easier journey home.”
Colchester had been behind for much of the contest after Newby scored for Barrow.
It came from a quick counter attack for the hosts, following a U’s corner.
“I thought we were really unlucky to be 1-0 down, in a game of few chances,” said Cowley.
“We probably had the best one in the game – a great move with JK (Gordon) and Lyle linking.
“Once JK starts scoring, he won’t stop and he does that a lot in training, comes in and scores and he’s getting stronger by the game, which is a real positive.
“Their goalkeeper then makes a great save and they then probably have a chance on the cutback when they hit it over and we then get done on the counter attack.
“We’d just got control of the game and we’d had seven or eight minutes where we’d dominated the ball in their half and had a really good move that leads to a corner and we just let them escape.
“It was really frustrating for us and it’s not a goal that we like to concede.
READ MORE: Barrow 1 Colchester United 1 - as it happened
“There were a couple of mistakes in the lead up to it and they end up advancing down our left, standing up a cross and Flan (Tom has two players on the back post which can happen, when you get counter attacked.
“We had to contain that better than we did and stop it at source but we didn’t, so we go in 1-0 down.
“I thought in the second half, it was all us really.”
Colchester claim a point when Taylor struck home his fifth goal of the season in stoppage time, after Samson Tovide returned from a hip injury and came off the bench to provide the assist for his strike partner.
Cowley added: “We obviously had the advantage to be able to use Samson from the bench.
“When Samson came on, the referee didn’t give him any protection whatsoever.
“There’s a blatant penalty that Samson ends up getting booked for and the foul gets given the other way.
“There was a lot of work that went into it, in the 92 minutes before.
“But it’s the minute that everyone’s going to be talking about and Samson just got in behind and it was a really good run that was too powerful and too athletic for their backline.
“He then just has the calmness and you’ve got to give the kid credit – he’s come back well before everyone expected.
“It was only on Thursday, he played with no contact – we called him a magic player.
“For him to come in and show that composure…I don’t know how many assists he has this season but they’re certainly mounting up and you wouldn’t want that to fall to anyone else but Lyle, because we know he can finish that and he was really calm under the utmost pressure.
“I don’t want to shout about Samson from the rooftops because last time, we lost Bradley (Ihionvien) on deadline day and I’d like to keep Samson for longer, if I could but I feel it might be difficult.”
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