Colchester remain firmly rooted to the bottom of the NE14Hockey East League Premier B table after a 6-2 defeat at league leaders West Herts.

It was always going to be a tough game but Colchester battled well and gave a good account of themselves.

The hosts took the lead early through a drag-flicked penalty corner.

This spurred Colchester on with the defence playing particularly well.

With West Herts pressing the ball very high it was tough going for Colchester to get the ball up to their front men.

Colchester’s best chance of the half came when Lloyd Dennis deflected a Joe Rich pass across the D just failing to find an attacker in the D.

Just before half-time the home side had doubled their advantage, West Herts got the ball on a quick break and found themselves one on one with Grant Hibbert.

The forward slipped the ball past Hibbert towards a late arriving team-mate.

Joe Rich got a touch on the ball but could not prevent it reaching the forward for an easy tap-in.

The second half took the same path as the first with the home side having a lot of the ball and territorial advantage.

It was not long before the home side had a third goal.

The third goal was a spur for a change of tactics from Colchester, pushing an extra man in midfield and leaving just three men at the back.

As Colchester struggled to get to grips with the change of system they conceded the fourth and fifth goal before they managed to settle down.

Once they had settled though the visitors really began to put some pressure on West Herts.

Colchester created chances with Craig Warriner forcing a good save from a penalty corner.

With the game drawing on the visitors pulled two goals back, but they had left themselves too much to do and were never going to get back into the match.

With just minutes to go the hosts completed the scoring when Tim Wright upended a forward in the D to give away a penalty flick and gain himself a yellow card and five minute suspension.

From the flick Grant Hibbert got a hand to the ball but couldn’t quite keep the ball out.

The Hills Residential man of the match was Mark Kennedy for his strong defending.