On a cold night Town suffered another disappointing result when they fell to a 2-0 defeat to Colchester United.

Terry Skiverton made two changes to his team with Josh Sheehan missing out and Adam Morgan dropping to the bench. Stephen Arthurworrey and James Hayter started in a 4-4-2 formation with Skiverton wanting Town to get forward as much as possible.

After a cagey opening 15 minutes where neither keeper was tested Town started to press forward and gain the upper hand in the fixture.

Former Town loanee Sam Walker was the first to make a save when he had to be alert to stop a Joel Grant header from close range.

Just five minutes later Walker was again called into action when he produced a fine double save. First of all he produced a diving stop to deny a Gozie Ugwu long-range effort and then he was quick to his feet to deny Hayter’s effort from 10 yards.

At the other end the tricky Jacob Murphy was causing Town some problems with his pace and his pass along the six-yard line was well cleared by Nathan Smith at the back post.

With Town attacking with pace at the Colchester back line, Smith’s scissor kick effort was deflected wide for a corner. From the resulting corner United’s back line failed to clear properly but Town could quite get a clear shot at goal.

Despite starting the brighter Town found themselves a goal down after Smith fouled Murphy in the area for a Colchester penalty. Cox picked up the ball and drilled the ball past Loach leaving him with no chance.

Less than five minutes later the home side doubled their lead. After Sam Foley forced a corner on the left Town’s big defenders trotted forward but the home side cleared and broke away through Murphy.

The Norwich loanee broke clear of the back tracking defence to slot the ball under the advancing Loach to make it 2-0.

With ten minutes remaining the home side nearly made it 3-0 when Gilbey’s shot rebounded off the post and away for goal kick.

Town were dealt another blow when skipper Edwards was forced off with what appeared to be a reoccurrence of his ankle injury.

In the dying seconds Hayter had the ball in the net but was flagged offside before his effort hit the net.