Iron manager Mark Robins was pleased with side’s efforts in testing conditions during the 2-2 draw with Crawley Town at the Broadfield Stadium.
The visitors displayed impressive attacking intent on a water-laden pitch, with their positive approach duly rewarded as they took a 2-0 lead courtesy of strikers from Paddy Madden and Lyle Taylor.Crawley fought back to salvage a point through a headed effort from Dean Leacock before an Izale McLeod penalty, but Robins told The Iron Player: “We’ve moved the ball really well and looked like a good side for large spells.
“I’m sure everybody who’s been to the game will agree with that. We lacked a little bit of a spark, but having said that the pitch was heavy as there’s been a lot of rain.
“The only downside, and it’s a big downside, is we’ve dropped two points from a lead which should have been unassailable. Again, there’s no such thing as an unassailable lead, especially when you start making the stupid mistakes we did.
“We made changes to try and freshen it up and give us energy going forward, but instead – because we don’t do it right and certain individuals don’t do things properly – it put us under the cost a little bit more. Needless to say, that won’t happen again.”
The nature of how the hosts were allowed to get themselves back into the contest caused frustration for Robins, who admitted: “We started going for the win, which is great and commendable, but when you go gung-ho and you open up all they need to do is break out.
“I brought Sean [McAllister] on to shore it up, but then he got involved in some forward runs. With the three in the middle of the field we needed to make sure there was no impact from Marvin Elliott, because Marvin can be a good player at this level.
“We needed to make sure we saw the game out, which we did, but again you’ve got to have a feeling we should be two points better off than we are at the moment. We’ve got to make sure we learn lessons from it, and try not to repeat it.”
The Red Devils’ leveller came 10 minutes from time, when Jennison Myrie-Williams was adjudged to have pulled back the advancing Ryan Dickson as he entered the penalty-area.
McLeod stepped up to confidently dispatch the spot-kick and ensure the Iron left Sussex with just a solitary point, although the 44-year-old had few complaints about the decision, as he added: “It’s difficult to say as it’s so far away from where we’re stood at ground-level; it just looks like he’s put his arm out and clipped him with his foot.
“For me, when you’re in those positions, you’ve got to try and get goal-side as much as you can do and we didn’t do that well enough.”
See much more from Mark Robins, Neal Bishop and Paddy Madden on The Iron Player.