Blue Square Premier - Saturday 6th December 2008
Crawley Town 4 - 0 Altrincham
Killeen 2,
Cook 29,
Pinault 44,
Pittman 90 (+3)
AN INSPIRED victory led by Thomas Pinault ensured that Crawley Town went back into contention for promotion with a four-goal drubbing of Altrincham, writes Mark Ritson.
Crawley's assistant manager, Paul Raynor, was delighted with the victory: "Today was a bit more like we played early season and when you’ve got Jamie Cook finishing like that he is a real handful for anybody. You only had to look at our bench today, the quality we had going forward was frightening and most of those strikers would get into any conference team. It’s not a massive squad, but there is quality."
Despite his side's inconsistency over the past month, he added: "We’ve had a blip recently, but confidence is rising and you see the result today. It was never doom and gloom, we knew there were going to be games when things haven’t gone our way, but hopefully that’s over now. If we can get everybody fit, we’ve got every chance of winning football matches and we are showing some real resilience now."
Altrincham got off to the worst possible start as Crawley took the lead through Lewis Killeen inside the opening 90 seconds. A superb delivery from Michael Malcolm on the right was spilled by ‘keeper Andy Ralph and Killeen was on hand to poke the ball home from six yards.
The away side could have equalised moments later through Chris Senior, but his shot was saved comfortably by Simon Rayner, despite a suspicion of offside.
Thomas Pinault and Dannie Bulman dominated proceedings in the midfield for Crawley early on and it was Bulman’s pass to Jamie Cook on the edge of the box that saw the former Oxford man test Ralph with a fierce drive.
Chris Giles should have extended Crawley’s lead with two good chances midway through the first half, but had headers comfortably saved as Crawley’s best player Pinault pulled the strings in midfield.
The away side offered little throughout the first half, but they could have found a way back into the match through Lee Elam and Anthony Danlyk, but Rayner in the Crawley goal was rather a spectator in this one-sided affair.
The home side extended their lead after half an hour through Jamie Cook, after Malcolm again sent in a teasing cross towards the back post and Cook stole a march on his marker to volley in from close range.
Alty’s problems went from bad to worse on the stroke of half-time as the impressive Pinault grabbed Crawley’s third with a thunderous shot arriving in the box after good work again by Cook.
A comfortable performance from the home side saw them grab their fourth of the match in the closing stages through Jon-Paul Pittman. The striker had been brought down inside the area in injury time and despite having the resulting penalty saved, he made amends seconds later as he powered home a header from an Isaiah Rankin cross.
Man of the Match: Thomas Pinault
Entertainment Rating: 4/5
Attendance: 978
Referee: Marvin Thompson
THIS COPY WILL BE IN THE NON-LEAGUE PAPER ON SUNDAY AND MONDAY.
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