Pete Wild sang the praises of his “fox in the box” as Dom Telford’s latest goal fired Barrow to a fifth successive win and extended their unbeaten run to nine games.

Telford, who bagged 15 goals for Crawley last season, struck a 46th-minute winner, albeit one hotly disputed by the visitors.

Barrow twice hit the woodwork and squandered a handful of other chances to make victory more comfortable, but had to settle for a 1-0 win.

A defence that has conceded just once in its last six league outings held firm against Crawley pressure in the final half an hour.

“Dom is that proven goalscorer Barrow fans have wanted for years,” enthused Wild.

“He scored one and probably should have had a hat-trick. But we brought him in for those type of goals.

“We knew when we had him playing with another striker he would create chances and that’s what we want. One of the big things about Dom is when he comes to a club, he is all in. He was all in at Crawley and he is all in here.

“Strikers like scoring goals and they are at their most confident when they are doing that. It was great for him to get another one.”

Crawley felt the goal should have been disallowed for a foul by Emile Acquah on Will Wright in the build-up. Wild, however, said: “It was at the referee’s discretion to pull it back if he felt there was a head injury or a foul.

“He felt he didn’t have to and we carried on and scored the goal.”

Crawley chief Scott Lindsey was livid Barrow’s winner was allowed to stand.

He said: “He (the referee) didn’t take the player’s welfare into consideration. It is a head injury. You have to stop the game.

“He has also lied. He told the players he didn’t see it. But he ran straight over with his arms in the air saying ‘play on’.”

Lindsey also felt Crawley deserved a point but did not do enough to end the Cumbrians’ unbeaten home record this season.

He added: “We need to show a bit more guile at the top of the pitch. We had a lot of the ball but didn’t create loads of chances.

“Their keeper made a couple of decent saves but we didn’t pepper them enough and ran out of ideas. We were too slow with the moment and the action and we have got to be better.

“We could have made more of our moments and we weren’t aggressive enough in the final third.”