Dean Brennan happy as Barnet keeper Cieran Slicker saves two penalties at Crewe

Dean Brennan saluted the hard work and perseverance of his Barnet players as they sealed a third consecutive win on their travels helped by two penalty saves from keeper Cieran Slicker.

Slicker’s second-half heroics when saving spot-kicks from Josh March and Max Sanders took the wind out of Crewe’s sails after Lee Ndlovu levelled Tommi O’Reilly’s stunning opener.

Ryan Glover then pounced to seal a 2-1 victory after Adam Senior headed the rebound from Nnamdi Ofoborh’s strike onto the bar.

“Cieran did brilliantly with the penalties; he read the first and pushed away the second one with his legs – although that one shouldn’t have been given as it was a dive. He has got a great football brain,” said Bees manager Brennan.

“It was a dramatic game with the persistence and hard work shown by the players getting us the three points.

“Having Nick Tavares back (from injury) was important as he is a key player for us and I am delighted for Lee Ndlovu as that was his first goal of the season.

“We were late getting up here (because of motorway problems) and I thought the kick-off was going to be delayed. It’s been a long day for us but I’m delighted for our fans who made the trip.”

Barnet weathered Crewe’s early dominance with Kane Smith blocking a March effort and Danny Collinge getting in the way of another strike by the forward.

Aston Villa loanee O’Reilly always offered a threat for the Railwaymen and he opened the scoring with a thundering left-footed strike but slack defending allowed Ndlovu a simple tap-in from a Senior cross.

Slicker then parried March’s spot kick on the hour mark after Sanders was tripped by Ofoborh, before following that up with another penalty save – awarded when Owen Lunt went down in the box – by diverting Sanders’ kick onto the bar after 71 minutes.

Crewe were caught out again in the 80th minute when Glover grabbed the winner, although the Bees survived another penalty appeal when handball pleas were turned away by referee Declan Bourne.

Crewe boss Lee Bell said: “We had plenty of chances to score more goals, but we missed two penalties which you don’t see very often. There wasn’t a lot of football in the game, but we should have won it comfortably.

“We started the second half really well and then after Tommi’s goal there were players not tracking and organising in the box and the ball ends up with the centre forward six yards out.

“I thought Barnet would play a bit more, but they slowed everything down. But we should have two more penalties, the second when there was a handball late on.

“You don’t win games if you are not ruthless in both boxes.”