Denny Johnstone admits it was a relief to end his six-month goal drought for Colchester United.

The 22-year-old hit the net for the first time since August when he scored the U’s opener in their 3-2 defeat at the hands of Crawley Town, on Tuesday night.

Johnstone netted in only his second league start for Colchester back in August, after joining them from Championship side Birmingham City last summer.

But the Scottish forward’s performances hard-working performances have not been rewarded by further goals until now.

And after finding the net for only the second time for the U’s, he admitted he was glad to be on the scoresheet again.

Johnstone told the Daily Gazette: “It was a relief to get the goal and I think that it’ll give me the confidence to then go on and maybe score a few more.

“It’s often a confidence thing for strikers and there are still plenty of games to go this season, so hopefully I can pick that tally up.

“I had a good feeling about the match and I was obviously delighted that I got the goal.

“I knew that it was coming soon enough and I’ve been doing pretty well over the last week or so, so I’m happy with that.

“I tried to build on my performance (against Barnet) and number one, it’s about working hard for the team.

“If you do that, then the goals come.”

Johnstone admits it was a disappointing night for Colchester against Crawley, after they fell to their first home defeat since November.

The result leaves them three points adrift of the League Two play-offs, ahead of their trip to play relegation-haunted Accrington Stanley this weekend.

“We can’t afford to dwell on the Crawley result,” added the former Celtic youngster.

“We’re Saturday-Tuesday for the next few weeks and we need to knuckle down and get on with it.

“It would have been nice if my goal had led to a good result but unfortunately, we didn’t play great.

“It’s a good thing that there’s only a couple of days before we’re playing again and we can put it right.

“Our reaction wasn’t great after the first goal and we sort of went into our shells a bit.

“We stopped winning the second balls in the middle of the pitch and things like that and never really got playing, after that.”