An excellent all-round performance saw Harriers stretch their unbeaten run to three games, all without conceding a goal, with a comfortable win over play-off rivals Crawley Town.

Mark Yates made a number of changes to the side that drew at Salisbury at the weekend; leading scorer Justin Richards returned to the line-up along with Russ Penn with wingers Martin Brittain and David McDermott missing out.  The changes to the side, and the formation, caught Crawley out as Harriers dominated the game from start to finish and gained some measure of revenge for their defeat at Broadfield Stadium earlier in the season.

After an 18th minute effort from Simon Weatherstone that ran narrowly wide of Adam Bartlett's right-hand post with the keeper seeing the ball late Crawley were second best as Harriers began to knock the ball around well and open up their guests at will.  After 27 minutes Matt Barnes-Homer did well to keep the ball in play on the left wing and pulled it back inside to Darryl Knights whose shot found Chris McPhee and he was denied by Simon Rayner in the visitors' goal.  From the resultant corner Knight's cross was headed into his own net by former Harrier Glenn Wilson under pressure from Keith Lowe.

Before the interval Harriers found another gear and could have had more goals; just past the half hour Barnes-Homer knocked the ball out wide to Lowe whose deep cross from the right was deflected out for a corner at the far post with Penn arriving fractionally too late.  Later the very impressive Knights carried the ball forward through the heart of the Crawley defence before playing it out wide to Richards who sent over a low cross to the near post where Knights had continued his run and met the ball only to turn it upwards against the crossbar and out again.

After the break Harriers continued to dominate the game; Knights' pass through the inside-right channel set Barnes-Homer away, he battled well against the full back before crossing low across the face of goal just ahead of Richards.  Just beyond the hour mark Harriers should have doubled their advantage; Knights' free-kick from the right picked out Richards who headed straight at Rayner, although he did well to get the header in at all while being held onto by Santos Gaia.

The second goal came in the 63rd minute; McPhee attacked on the right passing back to Lowe who mis-hit his cross, fortunately straight to Knights, who did well to carry the ball into the penalty area towards the byline before cutting it back to Richards at the far post who was left with an easy tap-in for his 17th goal of the season.

Harriers continued to carve open the Town defence; a Barnes-Homer cross from the left was headed back by Lowe to Knights who drilled a low shot narrowly wide of the post from 20 yards out.  Twenty minutes from the end Rayner had a lucky escape when his clearance hit Richards and rebounded back towards goal, only missing the target by inches.  A Knights free-kick from the left was inches away from being converted by McPhee who slid in at the far post.

It was stoppage time before Crawley looked like scoring, creating a couple of chances as Harriers eased off as the clock ran down.  Lewis Killeen's shot was well saved by Bartlett who pushed the ball onto the bar and then recovered to save from Robbie Matthews' follow-up.  Matthews then turned provider with a strong run down the left wing before crossing to the far post where Michael Malcolm blasted the ball well over the bar.

Harriers saw out the rest of the game without incident and took the three points that lifted them back up to seventh in the Conference, level on points with Crawley and with two games in hand.