Danny Cowley hailed the resilience of his Colchester side after they beat Port Vale 2-1 to move to within a point of the League Two play-off places.
Fiacre Kelleher headed the U’s winner in the 86th minute from Lyle Taylor’s cross to seal their victory and extend their unbeaten run to 12 matches.
Colchester had gone ahead in the 34th minute when Samson Tovide robbed Vale defender Nathan Smith just inside the visitors’ half before sprinting clear and firing a magnificent shot past goalkeeper Ben Amos.
Vale thought they had claimed a point when substitute Rico Richards converted from close range in the 85th minute from Jayden Stockley’s knock down after a cross into the box.
But Kelleher netted less than a minute later, to seal Colchester’s fourth straight win.
U’s boss Cowley said: “It was a really important win, full of character.
“The boys showed brilliant resilience.
“We had a clear penalty that wasn’t given and then they go up the other end and within 30 seconds, they’ve equalised having not looked like scoring all evening.
“Lesser players, lesser teams, lesser characters, we don’t even draw the game, we end up losing so for us to show the toughness when it really matters was credit to the group.
“Fiacre has had worse weeks!
“I said to him before the game ‘you’re going to score tonight’ because I’m on at him all the time as centre-halves – they haven’t got me enough goals from set pieces.
“I told him to do the Bebeto celebration if he scored and he didn’t even know who Bebeto was!
“I said ‘Bebeto? Brazil? 1994 World Cup!’. He said he wasn’t born, so I’m probably showing my age!”
Port Vale boss Darren Moore was disappointed his side conceded so late, having got back into the game.
He said: “We’re obviously disappointed to work so hard to get back into the game and then give it away.
“We never really gained control of the game, from start to finish.
“The [first] goal has just come from the boy’s (Tovide) tremendous physicality.
“He’s got very physical directness; he’s quite a speedy, direct player.
“I just thought that from the time that he turned Nathan [Smith] we could have done better defensively and helped him out defensively and read the situation better.
“They went in a goal to the good when there was nothing really in the first half.
“It was a bitty, scrappy game and both teams couldn’t get to grips with the game.
“We worked incredibly hard to get back into it.
“We fell to another goal minutes after, having worked so hard to get back into the game and from our point of view, that is a disappointment.”
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