Crawley started the second half of their league season on Saturday with a comfortable 33-13 victory away to Holbrook.
An error led to a neatly taken drop goal to put Holbrook ahead after 10 minutes.
Crawley then started to dominate possession in the forwards and the backline tore into the more static opposition.
An astute kick by Steve Wilson led to Luke Wilson outpacing the opposition to make further yardage. Crawley quickly fed the ball from the breakdown and Adam Blythman was on hand to touch down under the posts.
Shortly after, the hard working Richard Hewitt was put into space on the left wing.
He beat the flailing defence to score Crawley’s second try. Matt Lane-Miller converted both scores.
Two minutes later, it was Lane-Miller’s turn to burn the defence with some searing pace as Crawley broke from their own half to score their third try to go 19-0 up after 26 minutes.
It was at this point that Crawley’s injury nightmare started to unravel.
Captain Andrew Turner and Harry Mansfield had to leave the field with shoulder and ankle injuries.
This had a big impact on Crawley’s ability to win loose ball, and inevitably the visitors’ hard worked for continuity was disrupted.
Crawley’s list of injury problems grew worse in the second half when second row Luke Attew had to leave the field while his partner in the engine room, Rob Gilliatt, was also injured.
This inevitably took the steam out of Crawley’s efforts to maximise their advantage.
It was now that Wilson’s class really shone through. With limited possession and support, he engineered two further tries for Crawley.
Scoring one himself and setting up a second for Lane-Miller, who converted both.
Holbrook showed some real fight late in the game, Crawley, with the game won, started to tire, and the home side executed a training ground move to gain a consolation try.
Crawley play Pulborough at home in a cup tie this Saturday.
Crawley: Lane-Miller, L Wilson, Salle, Moffatt, Hewitt, S Wilson, Searle, Riley, Blythman, Garry, Attew, Gilliatt, Turner, Mansfield, Gosling, Eaton, Rouch, Westphal-Reed.