JOHN Coleman believes his players proved how much the gap between the Nationwide Conference and Football League has been bridged.

The Accrington Stanley manager was proud of the way his players performed against Second Division high fliers Colchester United to earn an FA Cup third round replay at Layer Road next Tuesday.

"It shows there isn't that much difference between the levels," he said.

"But you've only got to see how well Doncaster are doing to see how the Conference is a good yardstick for teams who are looking to ply their trade professionally, and we're looking to emulate that."

He added: "I said before the game I wanted us to be a bit more attack minded, a bit more positive and better going forward than we were against Huddersfield and Bournemouth, and we were.

"We made more chances today than we did in either of the Bournemouth games or the Huddersfield game. So the lads took on board what I wanted.

"I've said all week if the lads give me everything then I can't complain and I won't complain. I've told them I'm proud of them."

Meanwhile, Colchester goalkeeper Simon Brown, who kept the U's in the game with a superb save from Stanley midfielder Paul Cook said: "Accrington will probably feel disappointed not to have won the tie here with the chances they had in the second half.

"I didn't really feel like I had that much to do although I did make a couple of saves late on and I was happy with the one from Paul Cook.

"I know Paul quite well and after that save he came across to me and said 'what the hell are you doing to us?'."

He added: "It's a good feeling to be in the hat for the fourth round but we know we've only done half the job.

"It's going to be exactly the same situation down at our place because there's no doubt that Accrington are a decent side and they're capable of getting a result at Layer Road."