Cioffi hails Crawley’s never-say-die attitude after snatching point

Crawley manager Gabriele Cioffi hailed the “never-say-die attitude” of his players after they struck deep into stoppage time to salvage a 2-2 draw at Northampton.

Chris Lines scored a first-half penalty to put the Cobblers ahead at half-time and they built on that in the second period thanks to Shaun McWilliams’ first goal in senior football.

But Crawley roared back as Ashley Nathaniel-George’s fine finish resurrected hope of a comeback before Joe Martin’s unfortunate own goal, five minutes into time added on, rescued a dramatic point.

Cioffi said: “I always saw the goal coming because I believe in my squad and we have to take the positives from the point and from the mentality because everything else needs work.

“The never-say-die attitude is in the DNA because that’s what we are – we’re relentless, we never die and we always believe right up until the full-time whistle.

“What people think is luck, it probably is, but it’s a consequence of our positive attitude and positive mindset.

“The first penalty was a bit of a funny decision but the second was OK and then they scored their second goal from our mistake.

“We’ve had three games in a week and we could have sat down and given up but we kept going and it was an amazing performance from Ashley and his goal changed the game and gave us the momentum.

“But we can do better and we want to do better and we’re not happy with the performance, even if the mentality was there.

“If we want to reach our goal of 50 points as soon as we can, we know we have to do better.”

Crawley’s last-gasp equaliser denied Northampton a third win in a week.

Manager Keith Curle said: “It feels like a defeat but, as a collective, I think it’s important to look at the last week as a whole because it’s been very good.

“Obviously there’s a sense of frustration because you go 2-0 up at home and look quite comfortable and then end up drawing the game.

“Crawley are an attacking threat and they’ve scored a goal in every game this season but I thought we had a good foothold in the game, although our game management in the last 10 minutes could have been better.

“We were an attacking threat and we looked dangerous from set-pieces, but I think if the second penalty had gone in it would have deflated them because it came at the right time.

“We kept going though and stuck to our beliefs and it was an excellent goal from Shaun McWilliams – we’ve been encouraging him to get into those areas because midfield players arriving into the box can be dangerous.”