Ghosts of Colchester expunged with Tomlinson's late FA Cup winner
The full-back came off the bench to score a late winner in Colchester
Match-winner Joe Tomlinson was glad to expunge the bad memories of last season’s trips to Colchester United by sending MK Dons into the second round of the FA Cup on Saturday.
Dons were beaten on both trips to the JobServe Community Stadium last term, initially in League Two before going down in the EFL Trophy - Mike Williamson’s final game in charge before departing for Carlisle United.
The side twice fell behind on Saturday too through defensive errors, but drew level on both occasions through Rushian Hepburn-Murphy. And with three minutes to go, Tomlinson, who came off the bench, fired home the winner to send Dons into the second round.
“The last couple of games here have been frustrating,” he said. “It hurt last season, coming here twice and losing both times. Coming here today, I hadn’t forgotten that. Winning makes it extra enjoyable. Hopefully the fans that were here last season came again today and they were here to see the win.
“It was a great game of football, and it felt like a league game. It’s tough coming into those sorts of games because it was so end-to-end, and it was frantic. I’m just glad I could make an impact.”
He continued: “Everyone loves the FA Cup, and we know what a good cup run can mean to the club and to the fans, so we came here with every intention of getting into the second round. You could see that by the performance, the lads were brilliant. I came on and played a small part, Rush was brilliant with his two goals, but everyone was fantastic.
“Everyone would like to come on and score the winning goal in the FA Cup! There’s not a lot better than that. Rush and Natty did brilliantly down the right-hand side, it’s rolling along the penalty spot to me and I’m running onto it perfectly. I’m glad I could keep it down when I hit it, and luckily it went in.”
Dons put their name into the hat for Tuesday night’s draw, with Tomlinson eager to book a spot in the third round.
He added: “We back ourselves against any League Two or League One side. We’ve got the second round to come and we’re looking forward to who we get and we’ll go into it trying to win. We’d like a big draw to help the club.”