Friday night football saw Redbridge travel to the EMR stadium to face Grays Athletic.

A promising start from the home was quickly undone as from a long Connor Wheatley goal was headed on by Solomon Ogunwomoju into the path of James Barlow and he flicked the vall past the outrushing Goalkeeper.

It was a quick fire double as just 3 minutes later and Redbridge were two to the good, a cross from Ronnie Winn found the head of Tyler Dolan who left well and saw his looping effort find the far corner of the net past the despairing dive of keeper Sambridge.

After a promising opening few minutes for Grays it was now all the away side and they had a great chance to make it three when Soumen Nandi disposed his man and ran towards goal , rather than continue his run he tried an audacious lob which fell just wide of the upright.

Nandi was then involved again this time breaking free down the left, this time he pulled the ball back into the path of Solomon Ogunwomoju who failed to make a decent connection and could only fire.

It was all one-way traffic as Barlow in particular up top was causing the Grays back line all sorts of problems , they came ever so close to a 3rd goal when Winn saw his wind assisted cross almost nestle in the top corner which had Sambridge back peddling and clawed the ball away for a corner.

Nandi then rode two challenges before seeing his shot from range deflected which took the sting out of the shot and fell comfortably into the arms of Sambridge.

Just before the interval a big chance fell for the home side, Hirst got himself into a good position but his effort was denied by the feet of Wheatley.

If the home side wanted any way back into the match then a quick goal was needed and they got just that within 3 minutes of the restart, ex Motormen Aron Gordon slipped in Hirst and from a wide angle he was able to fire past Wheatley- game on !

Goals change games and this was certainly the case here, it was now a very different Grays from the first half as they were showing much more urgency in their forward play , Wheatley had to be alert to turn an Elliott Sartorius strike around the post.

Plenty of Grays pressure now as they piled forward looking for that equalizer , from a corner a headed had to be cleared off the line before the resulting shot was deflected onto the crossbar and away to safety.

Redbridge were showing little up front this period and made a host of substitutions , in doing so they were able to relieve the pressure and hold on in the end for victory in what turned out to be very much a game of two halves.

report by Adam Silver