Colchester United have refused to be drawn into a war of words with Hull City over the late postponement of the match between the two sides.The U's have declined to comment on accusations from Hull City chairman Paul Duffen of 'incompetence' on Colchester's part in the call off of last Saturday's game.

COLCHESTER United refused to be drawn into a war of words with Hull City after being accused of incompetence over the postponement of the match between the two sides.

The U's have declined to comment the accusation from Hull City chairman Paul Duffen of on Colchester's part in the call off of last Saturday's game.

Duffen also added further fuel to the fire when he went on to claim the game would have been a three-point banker for the Humberside club.

The scheduled 3pm game between Hull and Colchester was officially postponed by referee Pat Miller at 12.50pm on Saturday due to several sections of the Layer Road pitch being deemed unplayable following heavy rain.

Tigers chairman Duffen has since claimed Colchester could have done more to alert Miller to the state of the pitch earlier in the day after an estimated 800 away fans made the near 400-mile round trip.

Duffen claimed the U's did not alert the referee at all until he arrived at the ground at midday and said he believed Miller had no idea a pitch inspection would be needed.

Duffen said: “I was annoyed because the weather had not deteriorated significantly from Friday so there should at least have been a warning in place.

“It meant close to 1,000 of our supporters travelled down to Colchester to then find out it was called off.

“I understand that the pitch was not playable and the right call was probably made, but I found the handling of the whole situation incompetent.

“I heard some suggestions that we were pleased to see the game called off, but that is just a ridiculous story to suggest that they wanted to play and we didn't.

“With a fully fit squad, it was a banker three points for us. The last thing that we wanted was to see the game called off.

“We might have a game in hand but we've lost ground on the top six and fallen out of the top half. We were certainly the disappointed party to see the game called off.”

With Hull and Colchester out of the FA Cup, both sides face a free weekend on Saturday, however the Tigers have ruled out the prospect of hastily rearranging the fixture as their squad only arrive back from a warm weather training session in Dubai on Thursday night.

A more likely date appears to be February 19, four days after the club meet at the KC Stadium.