Crawley Town midfielder Jake Hessenthaler says Reds can take a lot of positives from draw with Newport County

John Yems' side looked on course for all three points before Dom Telford's 84th minute strike denied them victory at the People's Pension Stadium.

Crawley Town 1, Newport County 1 - RECAP

It was a superb second half display from Crawley and it wasn't for the crossbar and Exiles keeper Joe Day denying Kwesi Appiah and Reece Grego-Cox respectively, they would have claimed a deserved win.

And midfielder Jake Hessenthaler was pleased with the display.

He said: "Before the game we would have taken a point considering where we have been recently. The performance at Barrow was magnificent and tonight the performance was there , especially in the second half.

"Looking at the stats we have come a long way from where we were in the last couple of weeks which is a good sign. Disappointed but an improvement which we hope to carry on to Saturday.

"It’s a shame we didn't get the three points but I think we can take a lot of positives from it."

So what was the difference in the second half?

"We knew they were going to play the first half like they did," said Hessenthaler. "They are very expansive and tried to play through us so we needed to be compact and I think we were.

"It was more to keep the shape but try to get up the pitch the best we can and wait for balls we could nick and try to counter attack and I think they had to change their shape and that helped us and we caused them a few problems.

"Nadders’ [Ashley Nadesan] pace is going to cause anyone problems and Kwesi is always scoring goals