Crawley Town 3
Stevenage 1
League (League One)

Match report written by Neil Metcalfe, The Comet

Stevenage slumped to a second successive defeat on the road as Crawley Town did their survival hopes the poor of good.

All four goals came in the second half but it was efforts from substitutes Armando and Kamari Doyle, the first on 87 minutes and the second in stoppage time, that sealed the 3-1 win.

Brandon Hanlan had cancelled out Harry Forster's opener early in the half, his first for the club, but too often Boro were cut open.

And with Crawley showing much more adventure going forward, the result was a deserved one.

Stevenage manager Alex Revell shuffled his pack with four changes from the defeat at Charlton on Saturday, all four tactical.

Kane Smith returned after his injury at Wrexham, replacing Nick Freeman, while Dan Sweeney was back in the back four ahead of Charlie Goode.

Louis Thompson also came in for Eli King while Brandon Hanlan got his first start, in for Louis Appere.

The first period was one of the more open halves of football seen this season but it didn't conjure up any goals.

Crawley had the best of them. Murphy Cooper made an excellent stop to tip a curling Harry Forster effort wide in the opening 15 minutes and then the keeper needed to come scampering out to prevent a chance after Sweeney had given the ball away cheaply.

Cooper also came rushing to meet Rushian Hepburn-Murphy when Crawley cut Boro open, a flick taking Lewis Freestone out of the equation, but although the clipped effort beat the keeper, it also drifted past the far post.

Bradley Ibrahim also drilled a low shot wide of the same post.

But Boro had their opportunities too, none better than when Jamie Reid got in down the right-hand side of the box.

He tried to push it through the legs of Joe Wollacott but got too much height on it and it clipped off the legs of the keeper and went behind.

Smith got in a couple of times down the same side but the best of them, which just needed a ball pulled back into the middle, was instead clipped to the back post with too much club and the opportunity was wasted.

It was an open encounter though and even though there was plenty of talk of there having been no goal-less draws at home for 21 months, there was still plenty of feeling that a goal would come, possibly at both ends.

As it happened two arrived inside the first eight minutes after the interval.

Crawley blinked first. Boro had plenty of chances to clear and even get out to block but they didn't and Forster punished them by drilling the ball through the crowd and to the left of Cooper.

But Boro were level just three minutes later. A corner from the right was delivered in by Kemp and headed home by Hanlan.

It was simple, it was effective and it brought Boro the equaliser.

There was a big shout for a penalty when a Sweeney header back across goal was blocked by a red shirt, those in purple thinking with a hand by Charlie Barker.

The unsighted referee gave the corner.

Carl Piergianni also hit the top of the crossbar but that gives the looping header more gravitas than it perhaps deserved.

Crawley had two great chances as well though, the first saved by Cooper but the second, from the rebound by Tyreece John-Jules was going in until the giant frame of the Boro skipper blocked it on the line.

Crawley had their own penalty shout for hands against King but they would have the last laugh.

Hepburn-Murphy broke down the left and although his shot was saved by Cooper, the ball ran loose to Armando who stuck it into the empty net.

Hepburn-Murphy almost made it three after another move that simply tore Boro open but his chipped effort across goal agonisingly went inches wide at the last moment.

Doyle showed him how to do it with a thumped effort four minutes into stoppage time, rubbing salt into the Boro wounds.