Crawley Town eased past Forest Green Rovers on a foggy afternoon at the Broadfield Stadium, running out 2-0 winners.
Both Danilo Orsi and Klaidi Lolos found themselves on the scoresheet, and the visitors were arguably lucky it wasn’t a heavier defeat.
There was limited action at both ends to begin with, with most of the early phases in the game being played out in the middle of the park.
However, with 16 minutes on the clock, Will Wright made a superb sliding tackle to prevent Fankaty Dabo opening the scoring for the visitors, who looked set to score following a pinpoint through ball.
Wright was then on hand again 20 minutes later, sliding to deny Dabo the opportunity to slide the ball across the box in search of a goal.
Danilo Orsi opened the scoring for Crawley with 39 minutes on the clock, after some lovely movement outside the box from Nick Tsaroulla enabled the wing-back to fire in a cross in the direction of Orsi who duly found the net with a deft flick.
Minutes later, Ronan Darcy stung the palms of Rovers ‘keeper Vicente Reyes, who is in at the Wiltshire-based club on an emergency loan from Championship side Norwich City. Darcy wriggled his way in from the left-hand side, and his shot flashed viciously across the goal with Reyes doing well to a hand to it.
Corey Addai remained solid in the Crawley goal throughout, and despite having very little to do in the first half was called into action early on in the second half to keep out a low strike from midfielder Charlie McCann.
Crawley made a triple substitution with 56 minutes played, in an attempt to inject some fresh energy into the game. Kellan Gordon, Harry Forster and Klaidi Lolos came on in place of Jeremy Kelly, Nick Tsaroulla and Adam Campbell.
With just under an hour gone, Crawley nearly doubled their lead after some excellent determination from Danilo Orsi. He chased down what appeared to be a lost cause, and nicked the ball from Jamie Robson on the right-hand by-line, before cutting the ball back across the box into the path of Lolos, who in turn found Forster, but his curling effort was blocked before it could ever really get going on its journey towards goal.
Despite the scoreline, it was a relatively frustrating afternoon in front of goal for Crawley, who could and perhaps have had more than just one goal on the board after 65 minutes, but a combination of poor decision making and finishing cost them on more than one occasion.
The three points were wrapped up with three minutes of normal time remaining when Klaidi Lolos converted Kellan Gordon’s cross from close range. Although it was far from a perfect performance from Crawley, the three points were ultimately what they deserved to take from the game.
Just as the clock ticked over into time added on, Klaidi Lolos struck the base of the post with a ferocious shot, before Harry Forster’s follow up was well saved by Reyes at full stretch.
The result is a welcome one for Crawley players, staff and fans alike, and attention now turns to next weekend’s clash away to Accrington Stanley.
REDS XI: Addai, Tsaroulla (Gordon 54'), Ransom, Conroy, Wright, Williams, L.Kelly, Darcy, J.Kelly (Forster 54'), Campbell (Lolos 54'), Orsi
Attendance: 2,838 (242 away)
