Carl Cort took another major step towards full match fitness yesterday when he played 75 minutes of a 'behind-closed-doors' friendly against Colchester at Norwich City's Colney training ground.

Carl Cort took another major step towards full match fitness yesterday when he played 75 minutes of a 'behind-closed-doors' friendly against Colchester at Norwich City's Colney training ground.

Canaries boss Glenn Roeder was delighted to see the former Wimbledon, Newcastle and Wolves striker come through without any problems in a match which ended 1-1.

Another striker hoping to impress, Arturo Lupoli, scored the Norwich goal in spectacular style with an overhead kick.

But one of the main purposes of arranging the fixture was to help Cort put his months of inactivity through injury further behind him.

And though still well short of the kind of sharpness which once persuaded Newcastle to pay £7m for his services, he will clearly have benefitted from the run-out.

With Leroy Lita and Antoine Sibierski due to return to Reading and Manchester City respectively in January, the Canaries cannot get Cort ready for full-blown action soon enough.

And having also had half an hour of action as a second half substitute during the 1-0 victory over Charlton on Saturday, the feeling is mutual.

"I'm looking forward to getting my minutes and maybe sooner or later getting a start so I can prove what I can do," he said after Saturday's game.

"Don't get me wrong I'm still not quite up to speed yet, but every day in training I've been feeling better and better, in terms of speed of thought and your feet. It's getting sharper and hopefully it'll come together sooner or later.

"I can go in every day and train but you can't replace that. The more games I can get, the more minutes I can get then the more sharpness I can get then I'll gradually get better and better."

Now he is targeting a starting berth - and is looking forward to getting on the end of crosses from the likes of wide men Lee Croft and David Bell, who delivered a series of testing centres against the Addicks - the sort Cort has thrived on throughout his career.

"I'm not the sort of player who's going to take players on and scream one into the top corner," Cort said.

"I consider myself more of a box player so when you see those sorts of balls coming in, then it's a tasty thought to be there."