IAN Evatt reckons the timewasting tactics employed by Colchester United in the Good Friday stalemate at The UniBol became “a farce”.

The Bolton boss was frustrated at the spoiling methods employed by the U’s as they fought their way to a point under new head coach Hayden Mullins.

Evatt admitted some of his attacking players were “below par” on the day – but felt the matchday officials did not crack down hard enough as Colchester looked to slow the game down.

“It just becomes a farce really,” he said. “It really does because you can waste time first half in games. I don’t understand why officials have a completely different view second half to the first half.

“It’s still the game, it’s still minutes in the game so they have to be all over it and if they don’t, the opposition are going to keep pushing the boundaries until the referee stamps it out and he didn’t stamp it out today.”

Evatt felt his side lacked an attacking edge against the U’s – and that the Colchester spoiling tactics did affect his players.

“We just become panicky, we become especially in the second half disjointed at times,” he said.

“We stopped believing for the first time in a while. We huffed and puffed and it looked like the goal wasn’t going to come.

“Maybe for a couple of minutes towards the end we started to get a head of steam up, but we become disjointed and wobbled because of the opposition’s spoiling tactics in my opinion.

“We have to rise above that and be better than that.”