Sonny Bradley has urged Crawley’s loanees to graduate with honours from League Two’s school of hard knocks.

And a win over Dagenham and Redbridge today would not be a bad step towards that goal.

The Reds skipper is likely to be joined in defence by three players on loan from leading Championship clubs against the Daggers.

Josh Yorweth, from Ipswich, will partner him in the centre if he has recovered from midweek illness while Mitch Hancox (Birmingham) and home debutant Josh Emmanuel (Ipswich) fill the full-back berths.

They are three of many loanees dotted around League Two.

Bradley, who takes his leadership roles on and off the pitch seriously, admits it is sink or swim, especially for those with little first-team experience.

He told The Argus: “It’s difficult for the young lads, no two ways about it.

“I’ve been there – 18, 19 – where you go out on loan, it’s a long ball game and sometimes you’ve got to adapt to it.

“Look at the clubs these young kids are from. They’ve been playing under-21 football which, when you compare it to League Two, is a bit false.

“They’ve got to grow up as soon as possible and start becoming men. Under-21s’ football is a lot of possession football but, when you go into League Two, you find that’s not how it works.

“Some young lads get found out and, if they can’t handle it, as we’ve seen this season, they get sent straight back.

“So far Mitch, Josh and the other Josh have stepped up and done well.”

Reds boss Mark Yates has told The Argus sorting out the future of his loan players is a priority as he plans for the forthcoming transfer window.

Yates said: We have looked (at signings) of course but a few things have got to be sorted out in the first place.

“I’ve made a couple of calls to clubs.

“We have got a list of players we are trying to assemble and decide where we are going to go if we need to, “We have got players who are already here on loan, “Their loans are up and there’s a number of them we want to keep.

“We will try to sort those out first and foremost.

“They have been a big part of what we are trying to do.

“Then we see where we go from there.”