Crawley defender Ian Payne has enjoyed the best week of his life.

The 26-year-old became a father for the first time on New Year's Day with the birth of his daughter Abigail Rebecca.

Two days later he was a match-winner for the Reds in their biggest game of the season.

Left-back Payne was required to go in goal for the final 31 minutes against leaders Weymouth after Andy Little was sent off for bringing down Lee Phillips and there was no replacement on the bench.

His first job was to face the resulting penalty taken by player-manager Steve Claridge.

The former Leicester, Birmingham and Portsmouth striker has taken spot kicks at the highest level in an 18-year professional career that yielded 187 league goals.

But Payne produced a superb full-length save and went on to make three more good stops to ensure Gavin Holligan's first-half header gave Crawley three precious points.

Second-placed Reds are now within three points of Weymouth, with a game in hand which they play at Grantham on Tuesday night.

Payne, however, is refusing to take all the credit and says manager Francis Vines played a big part in his vital stop.

He said: "It has been an absolutely unbelievable week for me with first the baby and now this result.

"It's not the first time I have gone in goal. I've done it four times now but it is never easy and it was brilliant to make a decent save from a penalty with my first touch.

"Frank (Vines) had done his homework before the game on which way Claridge takes his penalties. He gave the message to Charlie MacDonald who passed it onto me. He said high to my right and Claridge actually went low, but I went the right way and got my hands to it."

It was justice for Crawley who until that point produced one of their best performances since Vines took over as manager this time last year.

They out-fought and restricted a team, who had won 8-0 against Dorchester in their last home game, to half-chances.

The return of fit-again Mo Harkin gave Reds the attacking element they lacked in the dour 0-0 draw against Welling on New Year's Day.

The former Northern Ireland under-21 international gave the home side a torrid time down the right.

Vines kept two up front, leaving three defenders and a rookie keeper to deal with the Weymouth onslaught in the last half-hour.

It was a risky decision but defender Marc Pullan superbly snuffed out the Claridge threat.

Harkin said: "The character in the side is amazing. We had to reshuffle after the sending off and I wasn't playing in my normal position. But everyone had to do a job for the team."

Crawley's 35th-minute winning goal epitomised their character. Justin Gregory had to leave the field for eight minutes to receive treatment for a nasty gash above his right eye.

Gregory came back on with his head heavily bandaged and within three minutes delivered a perfect cross for Wycombe loan-signing Holligan to dive in at the back post to score.

Despite the performance, Vines is refusing to talk about his side as champions.

He said: "I don't think we can start thinking about the title. There are 20 games to go and if you lose three or four then you are out of it. When there are only about three games of the season left, then I might start talking about it.

"This was just another game to us. There is no point beating Weymouth and then going to Grantham and losing. We haven't played well in the last couple of weeks and hopefully this result will spur us on."

Claridge said: "I'm desperately disappointed because if you are going to lose a game, you don't do it against the second-placed team.

"We lacked quality in certain areas and of course my penalty miss didn't help either. We needed a break from something and we didn't get it.

"There is still a lot to play for and Crawley play again on Tuesday so we will have to wait and see what happens then."