Watford Ladies responded to their first defeat of the season with a strong 3-1 win away at Crawley Wasps.

The match remained goalless for over an hour, but Adekite Fatuga-Dada's opener was followed up by Anne Meiwald's first for the club to extend the lead to two.

Ellie Russell got the hosts back in the tie, but the game was finally put to bed when Katie O'Leary restored the two goal advantage.

The Golden Girls made two changes to the side beaten at home by Cardiff the week before, with Megan Chandler and Andrea Carid coming into the starting XI.

It was Carid who almost opened to scoring 20 minutes into the match, but a strong save by Francesca Gibbs denied her.

The Hornets rode their luck at times, with Nina Wilson keeping out Rebecca Carter with some fine goalkeeping after the striker had pounced upon an under-hit backpass, before the assistant referee's flag cancelled out an open goal opportunity.

Gibbs was protected by a slice of the same good fortune at the other end when she was beaten by Carid's shot, only to see it come back out off the post.

The breakthrough finally came in the second half just after the hour mark when Fatuga-Dada evaded the offside trap to latch on to Ryah Vyse's penetrating through ball and slipped the ball past Gibbs to put the Hornets ahead.

One quickly became two, when a dead ball delivery picked out the head of Meiwald, who diverted it into the goal.

Crawley looked to have set up a nervy finish to proceedings when Russell reacted fastest to turn home Naomi Cole's free-kick, but O'Leary's first-time strike found the bottom corner of Gibbs' net and the Hornets took all three points.