Rowan Vine scored a sensational hat-trick as the Essex side defeated the 1987 winners 3-1 at their Layer Road Ground.

It was veteran defender Richard Shaw whose error let Vine in for the U's first goal before former England Under-21 international Julian Joachim equalised for the First Division visitors.

The former Leicester and Villa man scored after Bjarni Gudjonsson caught Colchester's Alan White in possession and squared the ball for Joachim to hit home from close range.

However Colchester didn't let the goal knock them out of their stride and soon they were putting Coventry under more pressure.

Joe Keith's teasing free-kick on 35 minutes picked out Alan White, who should have headed the U's back into the lead but instead he could only divert the ball back across the face of goal and wide.

The home side's territorial advantage was made to count when Vine netted his fourth goal of this season's FA Cup campaign with another strike just two minutes before half-time.

A poor cross came to the striker rather fortuitously but Vine took his time to neatly create some space for himself and drill a shot past the hapless Gavin Ward. 

Vine completed his heroics by tucking the ball home with ease after Ward could only parry Keith's well-struck free-kick.

Vine, who is on-loan from Premiership side Portsmouth, earned praise from his manager Phil Parkinson.

"He's a quality player and can play football with both feet" Parkinson said.

"His first goal was composed and the second was the best you'll see from any player at any level. His third was just a pure predator's goal.

"Vine has been playing on the left all season, but tonight was the first time to give him a run up front and he responded in a great way.

Parkinson continued: "He's a quality player and can play football with both feet.

"His first goal was composed and the second was the best you'll see from any player at any level. His third was just a pure predator's goal."

There was a great Cup atmosphere at Colchester's tight Layer Road stadium and Parkinson was certainly one man who enjoyed the match.

"I promised an exciting night of Cup football and we delivered," he said.

"When we have gone ahead we have been guilty of sitting back in the past and they got their goal back, so at half-time I told the lads `don't take your foot off the accelerator and don't sit back and let them pressure'.

"Coventry put on a lot of strikers in the end, but I did not feel frightened by it."

Colchester's reward is a difficult-looking trip to Bramall Lane to play Neil Warnock's Sheffield United.

"We'll savour this result, but there's still a lot of football to go."


Team Details

Colchester United: Brown, Halford, Alan White, Chilvers, Keith, Pinault, Duguid, Izzet, Vine (Bowry, 90), Fagan, McGleish (Andrews, 45).
Subs Not Used: Fitzgerald, Johnson, McKinney.

Coventry City: Ward, Shaw, Staunton, Konjic (McSheffrey, 58), Davenport, Gudjonsson, Deloumeaux, Doyle, Warnock (Gordon, 16), Joachim, Morrell (Adebola, 66).
Subs Not Used: Shearer, Whing.

Bookings: Keith, Deloumeaux, Davenport
Sendings Off: Davenport

Referee: A Leake (Lancashire)
Attendance: 5,530