Robbie Stockdale was pleased to see his Rochdale side battle back for a point in a 1-1 draw at Colchester

Conor Grant struck a 76th-minute equaliser for Dale, scoring with a close-range shot after Corey O’Keeffe had done well to pick him out in the area.

It cancelled out Alan Judge’s spectacular 53rd-minute strike, which saw the midfielder collect Myles Kenlock’s pass and unleash a shot that flew in from nearly 30 yards.

Dale boss Stockdale said: “Credit to the boys – that’s three unbeaten. I think in all three games we should have got more points and I’m putting it on all of us to find a solution.

“The game lacked quality and the right decision-making.

“I felt in three-quarters of the pitch in the first half we were good but I didn’t enjoy us at all in the final third.

“Any moment where we could build a bit of momentum, it fizzled out.

“We wanted to be exciting but we weren’t and it took us to go 1-0 down to get that into our game.

“After we went 1-0 down, I thought for 10 minutes we had a mental wobble.

“We looked a bit shot of confidence then but after that I was pleased and we got control of the game again.

“We changed formation a bit and we were probably the team that was going to win it.”

Rochdale goalkeeper Joel Coleman had denied both John Akinde and Freddie Sears in the first half.

But Dale forward Alex Newby forced Colchester’s debutant keeper Sam Hornby into a smart save early in the second half.

After Judge gave Colchester the lead, Owura Edwards and Emyr Huws both squandered good chances for the hosts before Grant secured Dale a point.

Colchester’s interim boss Wayne Brown said: “We do need to take our chances but it was important we didn’t lose the game.

“If we can’t win games of football, then we don’t lose them.

“I felt that after a really tough first half – and give them credit, they did well at what they did – we held on at times and we weathered a bit of a storm.

“We didn’t really affect the game in possession as much as I would have liked, but give the lads credit because they came out in the second half a little bit of a different team.

“We tweaked the formation a little bit and we got a lot of joy and had a number of good chances.

“Emyr (Huws) has had one from seven or eight yards, Searsy has had a one-on-one which got caught under his feet and also had another one 16 yards out.

“We could have been two or three up.”