Harrogate Railway players praised for following game-plan during play-off semi-final win at Brigg Town

Joe Crosby’s first-half brace earned the Starbeck outfit a 2-1 away success over the Zebras on Saturday, setting up a winner-takes-all showdown with North Ferriby this weekend.

The men from Station View finished the regular season one place and three points behind their hosts in the final league standings and, on paper at least, headed to North Lincolnshire as marginal underdogs.

But, having already masterminded home and away victories over Brigg this term, O’Connell said that he felt confident that his team could repeat the trick as long as they didn’t deviate from what was a carefully prepared script.

On the day, Railway’s players did not disappoint.

“We were absolutely brilliant at Brigg, the lads followed the game-plan to the absolute letter,” the Irishman reflected.

“Everything that we worked on in the two weeks that we had to prepare for the match, they carried into Saturday, which is obviously really pleasing from my point of view.

“All the major points that we talked about such as nullifying their threats, sitting in and keeping our shape, denying them space to play in and looking to hurt them with our pace on the counter-attack, it all came to fruition.

“First half we played some great football. Going in at half-time at 2-0 probably flattered them. We had five proper chances and came very close to scoring more goals.

“Second half was just a very disciplined, hard-working display. We knew that Brigg would come out and put it on us. As the home side they had to because they needed to get back in the game.

“We conceded a sloppy goal and after that there was a 10-minute spell where nerves kicked in and we lost our shape. Brigg had us pinned right back for a period, but once we rode that out I thought we defended the lead well. Overall it was pretty much a perfect play-off performance, in my opinion.”

One unsavoury incident after the final whistle did threaten to take the gloss off an otherwise superb afternoon for Railway, though O'Connell was keen to play down the alleged assault of one of his players by a Brigg supporter.

Marcus Day was struck in the face by a home fan, and it was initially feared that the former Harrogate Town striker had suffered a broken nose that would have kept him out of this Saturday's clash with Ferriby.

"It was a disappointing end to the game. I'm not sure how it all started, I think that some of the Brigg fans clashed with some of our supporters and a bit of a melee had broken out," O'Connell explained.

"Marcus had gone over to see one of his mates in the crowd and someone has just come and punched him in the face. It's absolutely shocking behaviour and something that should never happen at any level of football.

"Unfortunately, Brigg have previous for this kind of thing, but in fairness to their players, management and all their staff, they were brilliant about the situation and couldn't have been more sorry.

"It's not something that I want to make a lot of fuss about or a big deal over. You don't ever want to see it happen, but the good news is that we think Marcus will be okay for Saturday.

"Initially we feared he had broken his nose and maybe even his jaw, but he was a lot better the morning after the game and will be able to train on Tuesday."