Harrogate Town 1 Barrow AFC 0: Sulphurites show they care as long wait for a home win is ended

The Sulphurites boss admitted that he questioned his team’s attitude and desire following their dismal performance during last weekend’s 3-1 loss to fellow strugglers Crawley.

But they bounced straight back on Saturday afternoon, substitute Matty Daly’s fine second-half finish enough to down the Bluebirds and earn the hosts a first success on home soil in eight attempts.

Victory not only ends that long wait for three points at Wetherby Road, but also lifts Town two places to 19th in the table and edges them further away from the drop zone.

Weaver, however, was most pleased about the fact that his charges served up a display that he felt was full of passion.

It’s an important three points,” he told the Harrogate Advertiser.

“It’s been a long week after last Saturday’s disappointment at Crawley and I couldn’t stress it enough to the players the importance of showing how much we care and who we are doing this for.

"The pride and passion that has got us to the Football League had to be in evidence today in front of the home fans – it is a professional responsibility.

"And the lads showed that in abundance today. There can be no argument from anyone about how much we wanted it, because it was clear

"We didn’t perform last week, we had a poor day at the office but we bounced back and we did perform today. We ended up with a deserved three points and that’s two defeats in 10 now, which for a club of our stature, isn’t too horrific.”

The game’s decisive moment arrived in the 74th minute when Town skipper Josh Falkingham won a free-kick in midfield and took it quickly, rolling the ball into the feet of Jack Muldoon.

Harrogate’s right-winger then found the feet of Daly, who took aim from just inside the box, picking out the top corner with a right-footed strike that Paul Farman got a hand to but couldn’t keep out.

And Weaver felt that his team were good value for all three points.

"I think we deserved to win because we had more clear chances to score and I thought that we did more in the game,” he added.

"I’ll have to look at the stats to see if they match up with my biased view, but I can only remember one clear-cut chance for them, which [Billy] Waters put over the bar.

"Other than that, there weren’t too many heart-in-mouth moments for me. They weren’t going past our full-backs or running past our midfielders, they weren’t getting the better of our centre-halves aerially. I felt that we were very solid.

"And I think that we had more control in this game than we have in some others recently. The system worked for us.”

Saturday’s result leaves Town seven points clear of the bottom two with nine games left to play this season.