Harrogate Railway boss Craig Ogilvie cites ‘horrible start’ as catalyst for 8-0 defeat to Penistone Church

The Starbeck club found themselves three goals down to the NCEL Premier Division leaders with just 12 minutes on the clock and never recovered, going on to lose Saturday’s encounter by an 8-0 scoreline .

“It was a horrible start which was the catalyst,” Ogilvie said.

“Three-nil down after 12 minutes and the game is gone. It’s hard to predict that happening.

“When it does, you just have to do what you can to get through to half-time and re-assess. I made two substitutions at half-time to try for damage limitation which is all you can do.

“I am disappointed with the manner of the defending, to be honest. I’ve analysed the goals and it’s just too easy for them, simple as that.

“This league is tough but when you give away goals like we did you’re making your life 10 times harder.”

The Railwaymen secured their first win under Ogilive and just their second of the season in their previous outing, beating Barton Town to climb out of the relegation zone.

And the Station View chief had hoped that his players would use that success as a springboard, yet insists he is not overly-concerned by Saturday’s drubbing as results elsewhere meant that they did not slip back into the bottom two.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t continue with the same winning team which played against Barton as we had four of the starting XI from that game unavailable, but we should still have been better,” he added.

“Overall, I’m not massively disappointed with the defeat as on league standings it was expected by most, but it was the manner in which we got beat which was the most annoying.

“We’ve not lost any ground as Goole got beat and Hall Road didn’t play, so it’s as you were [in the battle to beat the drop].”

Nathan Keightley and Sam Scrivens struck within the first nine minutes to get Penistone off to a flyer and the home lead was increased soon afterwards, Keightley registering again.

Scrivens broke from the half-way line to make it 4-0 just after the mid-way point of the first half before Keightley completed his hat-trick with 39 minutes on the clock.

There was more to come and it took just four minutes of the second period for Andrew Ring to add number six.

Jordan Corduri and Conor Glavin then notched in the closing stages to wrap things up for the hosts.

Next up for the Rail is a home meeting with third-placed Hemsworth on Saturday (3pm kick-off), a game that “cannot come quickly enough” for Ogilvie.

“It’s again what you’d call a ‘free hit’ against a very strong Hemsworth team, so the performance is much more important than the result as we need to go into March really hitting top gear as that’s when our big games arrive," he said.