WHEN Luke Prosser led Colchester United out at Macclesfield Town last weekend, it represented a special milestone for the experienced defender – not that he knew it.

“I didn’t have a clue it was my 300th career appearance, to be honest,” admitted the U’s skipper, who racked up the landmark in the 1-1 draw at the Moss Rose.

“It’s a shame I didn’t have another 60 or 70 games on top of that because of the injury I had but I feel young.

"I’m only 30 and I don’t see myself as old.

“Hopefully there are plenty more to come, especially at this club because I want to achieve a lot here.

“It has been going alright and when you have good players around you, it makes your job a lot easier.

“I was just desperate to get back playing this year.

“I got back in at the end of last year and I just wanted to add in that extra bit of experience.

“It rubs off on others and we’ve now got ourselves into a good position.

“You do need those experienced heads.

“We’ve got Noubs (Frank Nouble) in this year and Pelly (Harry Pell) so there is a lot more experience to help filter out to the younger boys in the team.

“Hopefully I help out in that aspect and I’m really enjoying it.”

Prosser has plenty of experience of battling for promotion in League Two, having achieved the feat earlier in his career with both Southend United and Northampton Town.

But the 30-year-old is not looking any further ahead than the next game, which happens to be a big top-seven clash against Carlisle United.

“We have to look at it as just another game and take them all one at a time,” said Prosser, who has made 67 league and cup appearances to date for the U’s.

“We were disappointed with last week in the first half but we clawed it back and got a good draw.

“Now this is another home game and, like every other one, we just want to go out there on the attack and get the three points on offer so nothing changes.

“We all have goals and we all want to get promoted but we do it game by game and I think we have done that as of late.

“We’ve managed to pick up some really good wins and Saturday will be no different.

“It will be tough because they are in and around us but we’re at home and we want the three points on offer.”

Colchester were thrashed 4-0 at Carlisle last December, in what was their heaviest defeat of the season.

But skipper Prosser insists that was only one game, in the context of a long and demanding season.

He added: “It was a bad day at the office up there but it was three points and as we said up there, no-one had died and we’ll approach this one exactly the same.

“It’s a big game because they are in and around us, but we’ll approach it as we would any other game.

“It will be tough but we will go for three points as much as they will.”