Harrogate Railway's Marcus Day tipped to go from strength-to-strength by boss Mick O'Connell

The ex-Harrogate Town forward capped a fine performance with two second-half goals as the Starbeck Club ran out 3-0 winners at Station View on Monday afternoon.

Those strikes took Day’s tally for the campaign to seven in 16 NCEL Division One appearances and his manager believes that they are the reward for the faith the club has shown in him since he transferred from Campion earlier in the season.

“I’m really pleased for Marcus because when he came back to us in September his confidence was absolutely shot to pieces,” O’Connell told the Harrogate Advertiser.

“He suffered a really bad anterior cruciate ligament injury a couple of years ago and has struggled to get back to where he was before that set-back. The Covid-19 situation slowed down his recovery and rehabilitation and then he was in and out at Campion before he came back to us.

“He was getting played out of position there and all these things combined have affected him. Strikers need to be scoring and you could see when he re-joined us that his self belief was missing in front of goal.

“But, we knew that there was still an unbelievable player in there, one who can play higher up the pyramid once again. I’ve had plenty of conversations with him, we’ve been patient and sometimes played him in games where his performance the week before didn’t warrant a start.

“And now we are seeing that faith being rewarded. We were always confident he would come good again and I think those two goals against Ollerton show that he’s turning the corner.”

Impressed though he has been with his player’s performances in recent weeks, O’Connell is adamant that Day is only just starting to get going again.

“Our previous game against Glasshoughton was probably the first time I’ve thought he was somewhere close, that was his first really good performance,” the Rail chief added.

“Then he’s followed it up on Monday. He looked good in the first half and was getting in some good positions. Then he got his reward in the second half. His first goal, he showed a lot of composure after being played through, the second on was a real striker’s finish.

“I think he is getting there, he is definitely improving, but he’s still nowhere near the level we feel he can get to.

“I have no doubt that he is only going to keep on getting better and better from here and carry on scoring plenty of goals for us.”

Monday’s win was Railway’s fifth on the bounce in the league and keeps them fourth in the table ahead of Saturday’s trip to fellow play-off contenders Selby Town, who sit just one place further back.