Lack of 'quality' evident as Harrogate Railway require last-gasp equaliser against Maltby Main to maintain unbeaten start
Rob Youhill bemoaned a lack of “quality” in Harrogate Railway’s performance during Saturday’s 2-2 home draw with Maltby Main.
The Starbeck outfit needed a stoppage-time goal from midfielder Ben Parkes to maintain their unbeaten start to the season after delivering their worst performance of 2025/26 to date.
Railway headed into the weekend having won two and drawn one of their opening three NCEL Division One fixtures, and fresh off the back of a comprehensive 3-0 success over Leeds University in midweek.
But, Youhill felt that his side’s latest showing left plenty to be desired.
“The biggest point we have to address is the quality with the ball,” he said. “We were really poor with the ball.
"I don’t think we played football. We did a lot of running, we worked hard – but not particularly smart – but when we had the ball, we didn’t really do a lot with it.
"We passed to Maltby more than we passed to our own players, and it was disappointing that we lacked so much quality, even when it came to making just a 10-yard pass.
"It’s frustrating that we weren’t as good with the ball as we have been recently, but I don’t think we will play that badly again. I just can’t envisage that happening.”
Railway fell behind in the 22nd minute when Bradley Grayson found the net, but got themselves back on terms just before the hour-mark through striker Alex Burton, who netted his third goal of the season by following up after a Sam Clothier effort had been saved.
Maltby went back in front soon afterwards courtesy of Ross Duggan’s tap-in and appeared on course for all three points until Parkes prodded home from a Clothier corner in the third minute of stoppage time.
And, although disappointed by his players’ footballing display, Youhill did praise them for showing the character required to salvage something from the game.
"We have somehow scraped a point,” he added. “It’s like a never-say-die attitude that we seem to have, which is amazing, because you can’t really teach that.
"So that is really positive, but we have to be much better with the ball.”
Burton, Harry Lynn and Harris Eggleston were the men on target during Railway’s 3-0 victory over Leeds University in their previous outing.