A doubly deflating afternoon for Robins (From Messenger Newspapers)

A doubly deflating afternoon for Robins

5:12pm Monday 8th December 2008

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Crawley Town 4 Altrincham 0 IT was a doubly deflating afternoon for Altrincham supporters as, first, their minibus suffered a puncture en route to Sussex and then they saw their team implode during the Blue Square Premier match on Saturday to go down to their second successive 4-0 league defeat.

With captain Robbie Lawton out injured and Shaun Densmore suspended, Altrincham travelled to Crawley with just 15 fit players - two of them goalkeepers.

Up front Dale Johnson gave way to Lee Elam while Warren Peyton, making his 150th appearance, came in for Lawton.

They got the worst possible start, falling behind after just 90 seconds when goalkeeper Andy Ralph spilt a cross from the Crawley right the ball as he collided with defender James Smith, leaving Lewis Killeen to score comfortably.

When, later, Ralph missed another of Michael Malcolm's right-wing crosses, Crawley striker Jamie Cook made it two-nil after 28 minutes, finishing well from an acute angle.

Just before the interval, following a Greg Young tackle in the Alty box, the ball ran loose to French midfielder Thomas Pinault who made it 3-0 for the home side.

Nevertheless, Alty themselves created several decent chances during the game but failed to convert any of them.

Indeed, they never looked really capable of taking anything from the game after their poor start. The final blow came well into added time when Young tripped Pittman to concede a penalty.

Although Ralph saved Pittman's kick superbly, seconds later Alty's keeper was picking the ball out of the net as Pittman headed home Rankin's cross from the right.

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