Crystal Palace - 3 (Smith 18. Morrison 37. Rizzo 87)
Colchester United - 1 (Keith 75.)

With Simon Brown banned for this match it was left to the youngster Andy Walker to keep out "the might" of Crystal Palace in the Colchester goal. The match was a little more than a quarter of an hour old when Jamie Smith let fly a great goalward bound shot. A deflection off David Greene ensured that young Andy stood no chance, and for the first time Palace were in the lead in this tie. It must be remembered that Colchester twice held the lead at Layer Road. Fifteen minutes later Andy made probably his worst mistake of the game when Clinton Morrison sent in a soft shot at goal that he thought was going to go wide of the mark. It didn't, and the keeper found himself picking the ball up out of the back of the net for the second time. Despite a couple of early substitutions from the teams the first half passed by without any further goalmouth incidents, and we went to the break holding what appeared an unassailable lead.

The second half appeared to bear out the thoughts that we were going to "stroll" the match in, but after half an hour Joey Keith managed to evade the defence, and pulled the visitors back to only one goal down. Still we looked fairly comfortable. Jamie Smith took the ball from deep in the defensive area to the halfway line, where Lee Bradbury took over and made a great move into the area. Though he may well have been able to score himself he elected to pass the ball to the better positioned Nick Rizzo, who made no mistake putting in his second goal this term, and sealing the victory.

Both Jamie Smith and Nick Rizzo scored their second goals against Colchester in this two round tie. Let's hope that they have many more goals to come.

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Fraser Digby, Jamie Smith, Andrew Frampton, Dean Austin, David Woozley, Lee Bradbury, Clinton Morrison, Steve Thomson, Matthias Svensson (Wayne Carlisle 23), Richard Harris, Simon Rodger (Nick Rizzo 59).

Substitutes not used: Andy Linighan, Matthew Gregg, James Hibburt.

Colchester United: Andy Walker, Joey Keith, Sagi Burton, David Greene, Warren Aspinall, Karl Duguid, David Gregory, Brian Launders, Jason Dozzell (Jamie Moralee 17), Lomana Tresor Lua Lua (Thomas Pinault 86), Richard Wilkins.

Substitutes not used: Jimmy Glass, Fabrice Richard, Steve Germain, Geraint Williams.

Attendance: 5,471

Referee: Mr R.J. Stone (Sutton Coldfield).