COLCHESTER United head coach John McGreal was delighted with the way in which his side bounced back to winning ways in convincing fashion against Newport County this afternoon.

The U's ran out 3-0 winners against the Exiles to move up to sixth and back into the League Two play-off positions.

Goals from Sammie Szmodics, Courtney Senior and Frank Nouble sealed an impressive win for McGreal's men.

It was the perfect response for Colchester following their 3-0 defeat at Swindon Town, last weekend.

McGreal said: “We’re still learning - we’re still a young team and the boys we’re trying to bring in to complement what we’ve got.

“There’s going to be defeats but the pleasing thing is how we’ve been able to bounce back from them.

“That was the pleasing thing today, how we’ve been able to bounce back with a very strong performance against a really good team in this division.

“We’ve scored some really good goals but it’s three points – that’s all it is.

“We can’t get carried away – it’s three points against a very strong team in this division.

“That’s the most pleasing thing, that we’ve been able to combat them and also implement our own game.

“We’ve been in and around it after good wins before and we have to back it up.

“It was a tough defeat for us at Swindon last week but you can’t get too high with wins and too low with defeats.

“We’re a young team and we’re still learning.”

There were some excellent individual performances for Colchester, in what was a convincing all-round team display.

Senior in particular stood out with his positive attacking play, capping a fine showing with a superb long-range strike.

McGreal said: “Courtney was one of the players who played at a high, high level.

“He was a constant thorn in their side.

“We put him out on the left – Butler’s a big player for them and we thought we’d switch Noubs over.”

McGreal rang the changes for the Newport game, dropping skipper Luke Prosser to the bench along with Diaz Wright and Brennan Dickenson.

He brought in Luke Norris, who captained the side, along with Sammie Szmodics and Tom Eastman and it paid dividends, following the win.

McGreal added: "We had a chat with Luke (Prosser) and he totally understands that - we have to try and mix things up a little bit.

"We've got Tom Eastman who's played 300 games for us and we want to keep that competition in there.

"We felt Tom deserved his opportunity."