Mike Jones scored an 84th minute winner as Crawley began their League One campaign with a 3-2 victory at home to Coventry City.

Reds dominated the first half and raced into a 2-0 lead after 21 minutes with goals from Jamie Proctor and Joe Walsh.

But crisis-hit Coventry showed tremendous character as they fought back with goals from Callum Wilson and Franck Moussa to level in the 2nd half.

Jones ensured the 1,080 travelling fans who made the trip would go home disappointed, however, as he scored on the break with six minutes to go.

The game had been disrupted by a pitch invasion from a handful of Coventry supporters in the first half protesting at their club's current plight.

Reds made a sloppy start and twice could have found themselves behind inside the opening two minutes.

Carl Baker cut inside Mat Sadler to fire over and then a slip from Kyle McFadzean let Leon Clarke in only for his shot to be well saved by Paul Jones.

After those early warnings Crawley settled into their stride and began creating a series of goalscoring opportunities Gary Alexander poked a cross from Nicky Adams wide, Proctor failed to connect with another cross from Adams and then Adams fired over from a clever short corner routine.

It was no surprise when the opening goal arrived in the 15th minute and it was right out of the top drawer.

Proctor picked up a clearing header from McFadzean deep inside his own half, ran at the Coventry defence before curling home a shot from the edge of the area.

Walsh doubled the lead six minutes later when he rose highest to head home an Adams corner at the far post.

The game was held up for about five minutes when a handful of away fans protesting against Coventry’s current plight invaded the pitch.

When the action got back underway Gary Alexander came close to making it 3-0 as his header from another Adams corner clipped the bar.

Crawley deserved their lead at half-time but Coventry squandered a good chance to pull one back just before the interval when Conor Thomas burst clear but put his shot too close to Jones who saved with his legs.

The Sky Blues made a rampant start to the second half and had already gone close on three occasions when Wilson pulled one back.

Jones pushed away a shot from Cyrus Christie while Leon Clarke and Wilson headed narrowly wide as Crawley were put under pressure.

The goal came on the hour when Franck Moussa outmuscled James Hurst on the edge of the box and although his shot was saved by Jones the ball fell to Moussa who crossed for Wilson to smash it into the roof of the net.

Proctor and Alexander both had chances to restore the two-goal advantage but were unable to take them and it looked like being costly when Coventry levelled with eight minutes to go.

A corner from John Fleck hit a defender and fell perfectly for Moussa to smash it home from six yards in front of the travelling fans.

Coventry’s joy lasted less than two minutes, however, as Adams played Jones in on the counter-attack who slide a shot through the legs of Joe Murphy.