Mat Sadler full of praise for Walsall match-winner Isaac Hutchinson

Walsall boss Mat Sadler hailed Isaac Hutchinson’s “unrivalled engine” after the midfielder’s 25-yard thunderbolt gave the Saddlers a 1-0 victory over Colchester.

Hutchinson found the top corner from outside the box to reward a dominant first hour from the hosts in the September sunshine.

“Isaac just runs and runs – probably all of us got caught out by the weather today because it was red-hot and I had lads cramping up, there were some really tired bodies on both teams,” Sadler said.

“It caught me unawares to be fair – I was drenched in sweat.

“But he is not affected by it, he is relentless, he has got an engine that is unrivalled – I don’t see anyone who can keep running at the same pace he does.

“He’s a real threat and his finish is top-drawer, he hits it and it stays hit.”

Colchester, lifeless until conceding, rallied after the goal and three times came close to rescuing a point as Arthur Read’s free-kick flew just wide and Owen Evans saved two Connor Hall headers.

The clean sheet was Walsall’s first of the season and a relief for Sadler after several late dropped points.

“It should have been more but 1-0 is a fantastic result, it’s a special result because it answers a few – we’ve been frustrated by conceding goals, it hurts me to my core,” he added.

“I’m delighted for all of them because of what they’ve put in to the game to get that clean sheet, we’ve worked really hard at that mentality.”

While victory lifted Walsall to 14th, Colchester sit just above the bottom two in 22nd and boss Ben Garner was frustrated at a failure to build on their impressive 3-0 win at high-flying Gillingham.

“It was disappointing overall,” Garner admitted.

“The challenge for us at the moment is consistency – we can go to Gillingham last week and hit those levels and perform at that intensity. And then we were nowhere near those levels today.

“We had too many not at it. We are stretched as a squad, we’ve had some injuries but that’s no excuse because we were stretched last week and we went and did what we did.

“With the quality we’ve got in the team we have to create more. Their keeper has made two good saves towards the end but we haven’t worked him anywhere near enough especially in open play.

“I’ve just seen the goal back and it’s a super strike but there’s five mistakes in there from us.

“There’s a lot of young players developing on the job and it’s sink or swim time now, we have to see which ones can survive and we’ve got to be ruthless enough to see which ones can’t.”