Kim Grant scored his first goals in a Crawley shirt but the holders made hard work of securing their place in the Sussex Senior Cup semi-finals.

Reds were cruising after opening up a 3-0 lead inside 25 minutes but the prolific Ben Watson scored either side of half-time and Bognor can consider themselves unfortunate not to have taken the game into extra time.

John Hollins gave four of the side beaten by York in the Conference the night off including front pair Daryl Clare and Steve Burton and Grant's performance will have given Crawley boss some food for thought.

But Hollins struggled to find too many other positives. He said: "We scored three well-worked goals and looked comfortable for a while but I'm looking for a lot more in terms of performance from my side.

"I knew Bognor would try and play and they caused us problems in the second half. Kim did quite well but in terms of positives that was about it."

Bognor goalkeeper Craig Stoner had a night to forget. His poor clearance was headed forward by Chris Giles after 11 minutes and Grant raced through unchallenged before driving the ball through Stoner's legs from hjust inside the penalty area.

Eight minutes later Stoner failed to come for Lee Blackburn's cross and Grant got ahead of Kevin Murphy to squeeze a header inside the right-hand post.

Then Stoner committed an even bigger howler when he dived over Tony Scully's 25th-minute drive and the ball squeezed into the net.

There seemed little hope of Bognor even making a game of it at that stage but the visitors kept trying to pass the ball and Watson broke clear of the offside trap to pull one back three minutes before half-time.

Eleven minutes after the break Richard Hudson's right-wing cross eluded a clutch of defenders and Watson was able to pick his spot from inside the six-yard box to register his 27th goal of the season.

Bognor sensed Crawley's growing unease and goalkeeper Scott Ward produced two reflex saves inside a minute to deny Hudson and Watson and preserve Crawley's lead midway through the second half.

Watson played in a couple of pre-season game for Crawley before heading to Nyewood Lane and his performance impressed Hollins.

He added: "I thought he did well. He looked lively and had good movement, you can see why he's scored so many goals."

Meanwhile, mystery still surrounds the future of Crawley's chief executive Steve Duly.

Duly has been on gardening leave since mid-November but he was back at his desk on Monday although no-one at the club would confirm last night that he was doing his old job again on a permanent basis. Duly, who did not attend the game, was unavailable for comment.

Crawley: Ward; Judge, Giles, Mendy, Simpemba; Scully, Opinel (sub: Armstrong 45), Blackburn, Jenkins; Grant, Whitman (sub: Proffitt 89). Subs not used: Smith, El-Abd, Kember.

Bognor: Stoner, Piper, Rowland, Budd, Balfe, Murphy, Watson, Howell (sub: Kirkwood 88), Hudson, Beck, Johnson. Subs not used: Chamberlain, Kirkpartrick, Hunwick.

Referee: Frank Meilack (Battle).

Attendance: 507.