Harrogate Railway boss Rob Youhill full of superlatives following comprehensive win at Maltby Main
Rob Youhill was full of superlatives for his Harrogate Railway players following Saturday’s comprehensive away win at Maltby Main.
The NCEL Division One title hopefuls produced a fine performance as they triumphed 4-0 to record their eighth victory in nine league matches.
With their hosts enjoying a decent campaign of their own and sitting just outside the play-off places, the Rail boss was expecting an extremely “tough” test, but after Josh Lockwood fired them ahead inside the first 60 seconds, the visitors never looked back.
And Youhill was left delighted with all aspects of their display in South Yorkshire.
"All in all, I was absolutely buzzing with the performance,” he said. “If you take care of the performance, usually the result takes care of itself, and that is what happened on Saturday.
"Maltby is such a tough place to come, it really is. They’ve got a decent budget, they’ve got good players, they’ve got good management, so I knew that it was going to be a really big ask.
"But, when I saw us in the warm-up, we were bang on it, and I thought ‘this will only go one way today’. And we started well because the warm-up was so good.
"The whole back four were tremendous, the midfield three were absolute dogs, which is exactly what we asked for. The front three were brilliant, and the lads who came off the bench were brilliant. Collectively, it was a fantastic performance.”
Saturday’s success lifts Railway back into second spot in the table, where they sit seven points behind leaders Dearne & District, but with four games in hand.
And Youhill is confident that his side will keep on racking up victories if they continue to reach the same levels over the coming weeks.
“If we continue to play like that over this difficult period, then I don’t think anyone is going to touch us,” he added.
"At the end of October and into November we weren’t playing well, but we were winning games. Now we are playing well and we have got to continue that.”
Centre-half Lockwood volleyed Harris Eggleston’s low corner into the Maltby net to hand Railway a first-minute advantage, with Eggleston then sliding in to convert Dom Creamer’s cross to make it 2-0.
Creamer himself added the visitors’ third of the afternoon almost straight after the resumption, before Alex Ingham rounded things off when he tapped-in Harry Lynn’s fizzing delivery.
Next up for the Rail is a home showdown with struggling Appleby Frodingham this Saturday (1pm).