Steve Herbert: Kazim-Richards has had desired effect, but Crawley need big performance at Bristol Rovers

In all honesty it’s been a good week, despite a 2-0 home loss against Grimsby Town on Easter Monday.

The 2-0 win the previous week at home to Gillingham and the 2-0 win in South Wales against relegation rivals Newport County on Good Friday has got everyone’s hopes up and the four-point gap between us and the bottom two remains intact.

With all the bottom four losing on Monday it’s made the win at Newport even more important.

A mammoth 523 Reds fans made that journey and they were rewarded with two second half Harry McKirdy goals to send the away end into ecstasy.

It was the sort of away game that will stick in the mind for years, should we now prevail in our remaining four league games and remain a Football League club.

All the stats point to that happening, now we have tasted a couple of victories under the new gaffer. The big test now comes to how we react to the defeat at home to the men from Cleethorpes.

The silly red card that Jay Williams received for kicking the ball at a Grimsby opponent will hopefully not come back to haunt us, as Jay’s leadership skills are a massive part of this team.

It means others now need to step up and be counted. It’s clear from the performances that the players have responded well to Kazim-Richards’ new ways.

As fans we can play a massive part of getting this football club over the line. We have Bristol Rovers away next and they have been on a brilliant run of form under ex-Crawley duo Steve Evans and Paul Raynor.

Another big away performance is now required to secure survival and put this sorry season to bed.

It’s been a real testing time since the beginning of February, but hopefully now with a couple of wins behind us and the cushion it has created, we can get the job done and all of us, players and fans, can have a well-earned summer of rest. It’s fair to say we all need it.

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