Red card 'ruined the game' says Crawley Town assistant head coach Lee Bradbury

The Reds fell behind early on to a great finish from Ryan Haynes, which was cancelled out by a strange own-goal from Micky Demetriou. Tarryn Allarakhia received a straight red-card in the second-half, as Crawley defended well for a hard-earned point.

Crawley Town draw with promotion-chasers Newport County - picture special | Crawley Town 1, Newport County 1: Ten-men Reds see out a point against promotion chasers Newport

Despite Crawley’s solid defensive display, Lee Bradbury was disappointed with the decision to send off Allarakhia: “Good side, Newport, flying high at the top of the league. The red card was… beyond me. Never a red card in my opinion, T (Allarakhia) brought the ball down as it came over his head, he didn’t even know the player was there, brought the ball down and the lad’s (Liam Shepherd) run into T’s foot and milked it and they’ve sent him off.

"It ruined the game to be honest, it became a game of sitting in and defending, and trying to counter-attack, but we did that well. In fact we kept a really good, confident side out and in the end it was a good point but I really did feel we could’ve won the game if that incident didn’t happen.”

Bradbury was, however, pleased with his side’s performance against an impressive Newport side: “They’re a good side. They move the ball well, they all know their jobs in the team and the formation they play is effective, but I thought we nullified that and we’re just disappointed we didn’t get 90 minutes to have a go at them, we wanted to win the game and we had to take a point in the end.

"It’s good that we’re disappointed that we haven’t beaten a top of the league side, but at the same time it’s very frustrating because we felt we were hard done by, by the decision.”

Crawley have had a good record against top of the league sides this season, beating Cambridge and Morecambe when they were top, and now drawing against the Exiles, but Bradbury hopes his side can turn more draws into wins: “We’re on a decent little run of unbeaten games at the moment, but we need to change these draws into wins, but having said that, they’re good teams we’re playing at the moment, Leyton Orient were up there, we had these today and we’ve got Forest Green and Bolton to come, tough games, and after that we’ve got an easy game against Leeds!

"They’re all difficult games at the moment but we’re enjoying it, we’re competing against these sides and that’s what you play the game for, that’s why you manage and coach, because you want to be up against good teams”