Ian Hendon cuts frustrated figure after Orient lose at Crawley

The O's stormed into an early lead through top scorer Jay Simpson, but the hosts replied through Roarie Deacon and Mitch Hancox before Simon Walton put Crawley 3-1 ahead with a penalty on the stroke of half-time.

Defender Alan Dunne received a straight red card for his challenge on Rhys Murphy in the incident which led to Crawley's spot-kick, and although Simpson bagged his ninth goal of the season late on, Orient could not salvage a point.

Hendon had no issue with the award of the penalty, but felt Dunne was harshly sent off.

He said: "It looked like a penalty but I don`t think it should have been a sending-off. The lad (Murphy) went down too easily. But I'm not going to talk about the referee."

Hendon was unhappy about his team`s rearguard display, adding: "Defensively we made some mistakes - we need to be switched on and defensively there is a lot of work to be done.

"We should have been 2-0 up and comfortable, but credit to Crawley for taking their chances.

"It`s one of the toughest losses because of the way we started the game. You expect teams to have chances, but we`ve got to deal with it better."

Crawley boss Mark Yates felt his players "deserve all the plaudits" after clinching their first home win of the season and the first at the Checkatrade.com Stadium since he took charge.

The Red Devils had scored only one goal at home before this game, and Yates felt his men finally had some luck go their way in this game.

Simpson put the ball wide wasting a chance of giving Orient an early 2-0 lead, and Yates said: "That was the first time a mistake hasn`t cost us in 10 games.

"We looked a bit nervous and there was a bit of apprehension in the crowd, but we stuck at it and got what we deserved.

"Going 1-0 down, we showed tremendous character coming back and my players deserve all the plaudits."

Yates hopes claiming the scalp of a highly-placed side will boost confidence, adding: "I am not going to moan. We have beaten a decent side and one with lots of goal threats.

"We rode our luck once or twice and we could have scored more - the players deserve a pat on the back. We will come back next week with more optimism."