Matt Tubbs scored a first-half hat-trick as Crawley hammered Altrincham 7-0 to return to the top of the Blue Square Bet premier table today.

Substitute Richard Brodie helped himself to two goals and midfield pair Scott Neilson and Sergio Torres also netted in a Reds' rout.

Assistant manager Paul Raynor said: "We started brightly and we thought if we could get an early goal then it would make it easy for us.

"It was a fantastic performance. Our strikers are scoring goals, we have kept a clean sheet and we have sent a message to the rest of the league and given ourselves a great confidence boost for the FA Cup game against Swindon on Friday."

They got off to the perfect start when Tubbs converted a penalty in the second minute after Jamie Cook's shot was handled and Tubbs gave Stuart Coburn no chance from the spot.

Neilson beat Coburn with a close-range header to make it 2-0 on eight minutes and two goals in three minutes effectively ended the contest.

Tubbs got his second on 36 minutes, pouncing on the loose ball after Dean Howell's free kick had been parried by Coburn.

Three minutes later another handball inside the Altrincham box was spotted by referee McLaughlin and Tubbs completed his hat-trick with his 16th goal of the season.

The visitors had the chance to pull one back four minutes after the break when they were awarded a penalty of their own after Glenn Wilson was harshly ajudged to have fouled Chris Denham but Shaun Densmore's effort was parried by Michel Kuipers and Nicky Clee blasted the rebound over.

Reds put the gloss on an excellent performance with three late goals.

Brodie's cross was turned in by Torres (85), Brodie knocked in the sixth from close range after Wilson had headed Steve Masterton's corner into his path and Brodie rounded things off in the third minute of injury time with a superb solo effort as he skipped round three challenges before wrong-footing Coburn and tapping the ball into an empty net.