After finding themselves two goals down inside 13 minutes, Peter Clarke and Francis Laurent, goals from Johnnie Jackson, Mark Yeates and Anthony Wordsworth helped Colchester turn the contest on its head until Jean-Francois Christophe made his last minute intervention.
Blues boss Steve Tilson was pleased to give the fans 'plenty of entertainment', speaking to www.southendunited.co.uk: "There were lots of tackles flying in and, of course, six goals. We played to the final whistle and on the balance of things, a draw was a fair result. We had a tough game on Tuesday night against Leeds and that showed a bit today. We were able to carry the momentum of the Leeds game into the first 20 minutes and made a fantastic start. Whether we tired in the end I don't know, but Colchester did well to get back into the game. They put us under a lot of pressure and deserved their three goals. Colchester got lucky with their first goal from the free kick and it got their backs up. Thankfully, we kept going for the last five minutes of the game and managed to score with the last kick."
Head Farmer Paul Lambert had mixed feelings after the enthralling Essex derby at Roots Hall. The U's boss said he was 'absolutely gutted' after seeing his side concede a last-gasp equaliser to draw 3-3 with rivals Southend United. However, he was delighted with his players' performance in recovering from a two-goal deficit to get within touching distance of securing a dramatic victory.
Lambert told local paper the 'Gazette' there were plenty of positives: "I have told them that there is two ways that they can look at this. They can be down or they can think 'hang on a minute, we were brilliant'. I think they should take the latter, because they were. It was a massive performance - to be 2-0 down in a derby game after the first 15 minutes and then come back like we did; there was only one team in it after that. Five or six weeks ago, they might have lost. It takes big players and big performances to come back from being 2-0 down. I was absolutely delighted with the effort but absolutely gutted with the way that we lost the goal at the end. Everyone in the stadium saw the way we played and the way that we performed against a very, very good Southend side who had just beaten Leeds United."
And there Paul is a massive clue, don't get too carried away mate.
Also a couple of weststanders commented to me with minutes to go that Col. U. had been involved in several high scoring games and the keeper was dodgy from set pieces.
From the players point of view the Blues French midfielder, Jean-Francois Christophe, has admitted he had no idea how he guided his injury-time equaliser into the back of the net. With only seconds remaining, Christophe converted a left wing corner from Kevin Betsy to send the home supporters wild with an instinctive if not entirely intentional finish.
"I don't really know how the ball went in," confessed Christophe, 21, "The corner came in, Adam Barrett missed it and the ball kicked my foot rather than it being the other way round. I looked up to see it go in and it was a brilliant time to get my first goal for the club because nobody likes to lose any kind of derby game."
For the Farmers, midfielder Johnnie Jackson admitted conceding a last-gasp equaliser at arch-rivals Southend United felt like a 'kick in the teeth'.
Jackson, also speaking to the 'Gazette', said: "It was a kick in the teeth because it felt like we had done enough to win - it felt a little bit like a loss in the end. We always looked likely to score and once we had 3-2 ahead, we all thought that we had done enough. But we obviously hadn't and it was important to see it out, which we didn't do. I'm sure the fans saw that we gave everything - it would have been lovely to finish the day with the win but we have to take heart from our performance."
It was quite a game, and from a Blues point of view felt like a win. After promising the German a cooked meal as I'd be home a couple of hours early, I ended up a couple of hours later than after a 3pm kick-off!
Who would have thought a small text, "stuck at Leigh station due to the massive rainfall" would actually work!