Williams hails Crawley's grit (From The Argus)

Williams hails Crawley's grit

5:39pm Saturday 23rd February 2013 in Sport By Steve Hollis

Billy Clarke celebrates his winner

Crawley assistant manager Anthony Williams hailed a combination of a piece of magic and some gritty defending as Crawley completed the double over Leyton Orient.

Reds followed up their 1-0 victory over the Os at Broadfield Stadium with an indentical result at Brisbane Road to keep their play-off hopes alive.

Billy Clarke scored the only goal in stunning fashion after 11 minutes but Crawley had to withstand some concerted pressure from the home side in the second half.

The result lifted Crawley to 12tt in League One, 12 points outside the top six.

Williams said: "We created a few chances in the second half and could have been out of sight but in the end we hung on well.

"The pitch wasn't great so we had to grind it out and a bit of magic from Billy proved the difference. I thought it was a cross to be honest but he assures me he meant it.

"The pleasing thing was to keep a clean sheet. In the last five minutes the lads really put their bodies on the line.

"We know we can play good football but today we showed we can do the other side of things as well."