County now in play-off places

NEWPORT CO ................... 2 CRAWLEY T ....................... 1

NEWPORT County climbed into the League Two play-off places after a hard-fought victory over Crawley Town at a packed-out Rodney Parade.

Josh Sheehan made his first start since his permanent move from Swansea City while Ben Tozer also came into the midfield with key duo Joss Labadie and Matty Dolan not involved.

With Mike Flynn insisting the players needed to fight to keep their shirts for next weekend’s huge FA Cup tie with Tottenham Hotspur, County made their intentions clear from the start and Padraig Amond almost fired them into an early lead when he smashed the underside of the crossbar on the turn.

The hosts continued to control proceedings, Mickey Demetriou heading over from close range and Sheehan seeing an effort from just inside the box blocked.

But they didn’t have it all their own way and a timely interception from Tozer cleared a dangerous Moussa Sanoh cross.

The pace of Robbie Willmott and strength of Frank Nouble were causing Crawley all sorts of problems and twice County almost benefited but Tozer blazed a shot over from close range while the Crawley defence managed to hack a Nouble cut back away.

Lewis Young, younger brother of Manchester United’s Ashley, went close to setting up Sanoh, against the run of play, but the attacker steered the ball wide of Joe Day’s goal.

County’s response saw them hit the crossbar again, this time from the foot of Willmott.

But they kept probing the Crawley goal and took a deserved lead when Amond headed in a perfect Ben White cross.

The near 6,000-strong crowd didn’t have to wait long for a second as Josh Lelan took out Sheehan in the box and Demetriou stepped up to covert the resulting spot-kick.

However, the second half started with disappointment for the hosts as Crawley skipper Jimmy Smith capitalised on a mistake from Day, who was making his 150th league appearance for Newport, to pull a goal back for the Red Devils.

But the hosts regrouped, with Amond hitting the post and Tozer firing over.

Crawley upped their game and found the net for the second time only for the linesman’s flag to rule out Mark Connolly’s header.