Colchester United - 2 (Dozzell 36. Lua-Lua 63.)
Crystal Palace - 2 (Smith 62. Rizzo 90.)

The side certainly made a hard job of what should have been an easy match. Somehow they always seem to do this, don't they? With Fraser maintaining his place in goal things were looking very bright for the visiting Palace side when, with only three minutes of the match gone, Simon Brown, the home keeper, was sent off for handling the ball outside of his area. The cause of his blemish was a poor back-pass from Sagi Burton. Surely this should have meant an easier path for the visitors to tread? As usual, we made a right mess of it. Not only could we not get on top of 10 man Colchester, but after 36 minutes the home side took the lead when a Joe Keith cross was not properly cleared, and Jason Dozzell was on hand to simply tap the ball over the line. The score stayed that way until the half time break, and one can only imagine what Steve Coppell had to say to the side - most of it would presumably be unprintable!

The second half started little better for Palace, but finally at 62 minutes Hayden Mullins thumped the ball goalwards, hitting the bar. The rebound fell to Jamie Smith who had little trouble turning the ball into the back of the net. Finally, back on track. If the travelling Palace faithful felt that we had turned the tide, their joy was short lived when, within 60 seconds Lomano Lua-Lua restored United's lead. Not only were these 10 men proving hard to beat, they were proving hard to keep up with! It took until the match was all but over before Nick Rizzo finally made his presence on the field felt with a well taken 20 yard shot that flashed over the goal line to put the sides back on level terms.

Palace will really have to perform much better than this in the return leg at Selhurst in a fortnight from now.

Colin Pryce

Colchester United: Simon Brown, Richard Wilkins, Sagi Burton, David Greene Karl Duguid, Joe Keith, Warren Aspinal, David Gregory, Brian Launders, Jason Dozzell, Lomano Lua-Lua.

Substitutes not used: Fabrice Richard, Steve Germain, Thomas Pinault, Kelchie Opara, Andy Walker. (unknown who was used and who stayed on the bench).

Crystal Palace: Fraser Digby, Jamie Smith, Andrew Frampton (Nick Rizzo 46), Dean Austin, Dave Tuttle, David Woozley, Hayden Mullins (Steve Evans 90), Lee Bradbury, Clinton Morrison, Steve Thomson (Richard Harris 71), Simon Rodger.

Substitutes not used: Matthew Gregg, Andrew Martin.

Attendance: 4,242

Referee: Mr W. Jordan (Tring).