Boss Richie Barker praised Crawley's mentality after they fought back from a goal down with ten men to beat Gillingham.

Reds gave themselves a mountain to climb when Gary Alexander was shown a straight red card shortly after Danny Kedwll had given Gillingham the lead from the penalty spot early in the second half.

But referee Steven Rushton levelled things up by dismissing Charlie Lee with Kyle McFadzean equalising from the resulting free kick.

Billy Clarke added a goal either side of a strike from Leon Legge to seal a victory which saw Reds climb to sixth in League One.

Barker said: "We could easily have gone under at 1-0 down and down to ten men. The mentality of the players to continue doing the right things impressed me and we got our rewards in the end.

"I'm not sure we would have won that game last year. We might have nicked a draw but I don't think we would have seen it through so that shows we have a greater winning mentality.

"We made hard work of it but I thought we were the best side and could have won more comfortably than we did. Their goalkeeper was probably the man of the match and made six top notch saves which tells its own story."

Barker had no argument with Gillingham's penalty awarded after Mark Connolly brought down Kedwell but will study the video of the match before deciding whether to appeal against Alexander's red card.

He added: "I wasn't even aware it was a straight red card until after the game so there is a chance we might appeal. Gary said he didn't do anything and there didn't seem too much in it."