Harrogate Town beat Accrington Stanley and deliver desired reaction to Bromley FC disappointment

The Sulphurites bounced back from that 2-0 loss with a 2-1 home win over Accrington Stanley on Saturday afternoon, moving 10 points clear of the League Two relegation zone in the process.

The Town boss felt compelled to deliver a dressing-room rollicking after last weekend’s disappointment in SouthEast London and demanded that his charges showed both him and the club’s supporters how much they cared about making amends by delivering a “passionate” display at Wetherby Road.

And although their performance against Stanley wouldn’t exactly fall into the ‘vintage’ category, Harrogate had much the better of the first half, took their chances when they came and limited their visitors to very few clear goal-scoring opportunities.

Thus, Weaver was left “delighted” at the full-time whistle and praised his team for the character they showed, adding that he had no doubts that they would come up with a bounce-back of the required standard.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, I got the response that I wanted,” he said.

“I thought that we were forceful, we were passionate right from the off - and I knew that we would be.

“They are a good group. We were off it last week, but that’s now one game in 11 where we have been off it, and I don’t think that there are too many in League Two who can boast about their team in that respect.

Town centre-half Jasper Moon opened the scoring on 19 minutes when he met Ellis Taylor’s right-wing corner at the back post and nodded the ball down and into the net via a significant deflection off an Accrington defender.

Stanley levelled matters early in the second half as Josh Woods met Ash Hunter’s corner first-time and swept the ball across James Belshaw.

But, just eight minutes later, a Harrogate free-kick was not dealt with by the visiting defence and Toby Sims was able to lift the ball over both his own head and the Accrington back-line for March to run in behind and crash a volley beyond Billy Crellin.

Belshaw was then required to make an important reaction save to keep out Tyler Walton’s close-range header as Stanley pushed for a second equaliser.

But, Town almost added a third goal in stoppage-time as substitute Tom Cursons fired narrowly over the cross-bar.

Saturday’s win lifts the Sulphurites back above Accrington in the League Two table and up to 20th position.