Two late goals saw Croydon Athletic bounce back from their defeat to Fleet Town on Saturday with a 3-1 win at 10-man Dulwich Hamlet.

Saturday's loss was the Rams' first in 10 games but spectacular goals from Gareth Williams and Danny Waldren were added to by a Gary Noel penalty and Croydon are now just three points behind leaders Worthing with three games in hand.

Both teams had chances in the early exchanges without any real goal threat before Gary Gonnella put Dulwich ahead in the 15th minute with a long range shot that blasted into the Croydon goal.

Dulwich suffered a severe blow in the 23rd minute though when goalkeeper Jack Binks handled a ball outside his area and was promptly showed the red card by the referee.

With no reserve keeper on the bench, Dulwich had to shuffle their players and Croydon tried to take advantage of this with a long range strike from Waldren skimming the crossbar and a free kick from Chris Piper rebounding off the Dulwich wall and falling to Chris Bourne to knock it just wide.

With Dulwich pushing forward in the second half, Andy Little in the Croydon goal pulled off a good save and at the other end Williams just failed to connect from a good cross into the box as Croydon looked for the equaliser.

The breakthrough for the away side came in the 70th minute, when an inspired 20-yard chip over Dulwich’s stand-in keeper from Williams levelled the scoreline.

In the 77th minute, Tom Bolarinwa had a strike from 25 yards but the keeper managed to get a hand to it and deny the Rams the winner.

In the 82nd minute, Waldren produced a moment of magic with a 30-yard screamer that fired the Rams ahead.

Just three minutes later Noel was judged to have been fouled in the box and calmly stepped up to the spot to make it 3-1.

Tim O'Shea gave a debut to new signing Taurean McDonald-Roberts from the bench after he joined on work experience from Crystal Palace.

Croydon Athletic: Andy Little, Joe Howe, Chris Bourne, Danny Waldren, Joe Dolan, Daniel Sintim, Tom Bolarinwa (Rory Hill, 89), Chris Piper, Gareth Williams (Ben Godfrey, 80), Gary Noel, Leslie Thompson (Taurean McDonald-Roberts, 60). Subs not used: Jeremy Williams, Bentley Graham.