COLCHESTER United striker David Mooney is hungry for goals.

The Reading loanee took his tally for the season to four on Saturday when he opened the scoring in the 3-1 win over Tranmere.

And following a fine individual display, the confident Irishman was substituted in the 75th minute to a standing ovation from the home crowd.

The withdrawal was with Tuesday night’s visit of Dagenham & Redbridge in mind, however Mooney admits he was disappointed to come off with the team playing so well.

“I wasn’t too happy!,” joked the 25-year-old.

“The manager has just pulled me aside though and said the most important thing was to have me right for Tuesday.

“I respect his decision, he’s been a great fella to me since I’ve come here, but I must admit I was sitting there on the bench at the end thinking I could have got more goals.”

Mooney, who is on loan at the Essex club until January, is the designated penalty taker at present. However, with him off the pitch late on, he had to watch as Anthony Wordsworth’s 80th minute spot-kick was saved.

“When I’ve seen the penalty given I must admit I was cracking up on the bench there because I knew if Woody (Anthony Wordsworth) had scored it then it would have been difficult to get them back off him!

“I set myself a monthly goal target and I’ll have to get a couple more if I’m going to meet that. I think that’s four for me now and if I can get to 15 by Christmas I’ll be happy.”

Reflecting further on the game, Mooney added: “I thought we started off really well. We’ve worked on playing at a high tempo all week so it was really satisfying to get the three early goals.

“We’ve dominated at stages in all of our home games so far but not quite been able to get the win, but today we managed to put it all together.

“Getting three early goals gives you a bit of breathing space and I think you could see that we were all really enjoying it after that.

“To be honest we could have been looking at five or six had we taken our second half chances.”