COURTNEY Senior says strong form on the road will be a crucial component in Colchester United's promotion bid this season.

The 21-year-old U's winger put in an excellent attacking display in their 1-1 draw with Exeter City at the JobServe Community Stadium on Saturday and agreed with boss John McGreal's assessment that they were unfortunate to only take a point against the Grecians.

Only an inspired goalkeeping performance from Christy Pym denied Colchester a hatful of goals and three points, but Senior felt they should be encouraged by another strong team display on home turf.

The draw took the U's up to third in the League Two table and they have now taken 22 points at home.

The away form is still lagging behind that, though, and the team head to Forest Green Rovers tonight on the back of three back-to-back away defeats - two in cup competitions and one in the league.

And with only ten points taken from nine away days in League Two so far this season, Senior recognises the need to pick up more on their travels to reinforce their place in the automatic promotion spots.

He said: “It’s always good to get the away form going.

“At home, we know we’re really good and we have to make sure we get at least a point there (at Forest Green Rovers) on Tuesday.

“We’ll look for the three points as we always do, but we’ll just look to play well and do what we can.

“We’re in a good position.

“It’s still early doors and we’ve done well to get ourselves up to where we are so far.

“Third spot is good and we looked good against a good Exeter team on Saturday.

“It’s going well.

“Hopefully we can stay up there; we have the players to do it and we’re playing well.

“Everything is going well and if we can improve the away form them I know 100 per cent that we can be up there at the end of the season."

U's boss John McGreal was vocal in his urging of Senior to run at Exeter's players, to take them on and get behind the Grecians' defence early in the game on Saturday and the young winger responded with a skilful display.

However, he knows that's his job and said he'd be looking for more of the same at Forest Green tonight.

“I’m a winger and, in my position nowadays, you have to create or score," he added.

“So that’s what I always try to do and it will be no different at Forest Green Rovers.

“We created a lot of chances against Exeter and credit to their keeper as he was excellent for them to deny us more.

“But if we carry on creating chances then hopefully we can put more of them away."