Another 3 points in the bag as Rail put Woodley Sports to the sword
HARROGATE RAILWAY 3 WOODLEY SPORTS 1
TEAM NEWS: For the third game running Phil Sharpe had the luxury of picking an unchanged side and who narrowly lost to Colwyn Bay the previous week.
With Woodley Sports coming off a big victory last week against league leaders Lancaster City Rail were expecting a tough game and so it turned out to be. However despite Rails loss against Colwyn Bay it was Rail who started off the liveliest with every player putting in 100% and causing our visitors all sorts of problems. It was developing into a midfield battle and to be honest Woodley Sports fell right into our hands. With Liam Gray and Nicky Darker biting into every tackle our visitors didn’t have chance to settle on the ball. Although the chances were limited it was Woodley Sports who came closest on 15 minutes when a long range shot went narrowly wide of Manny’s left hand post. A late tackle on Paul Stansfield went unpunished shortly afterwards but Tom Jackson wasn’t as lucky as he made a clumsy challenge in midfield and was immediately shown a yellow card. Woodley Sports were now pushing forward and were starting to cause the Rail defence some problems and it was on one of these attacks that all hell broke loose. Liam made a tackle from behind as Anthoni Sarcevic advanced on goal. The player reacted by pushing Liam down to the ground and then both sets of players joined in a melee of pushing and shoving in which one or two players raised their hands. To be honest Liam deserved the booking he got but unfortunately the referee was not strong enough to produce at least two red cards for a player from each side. The linesperson obviously didn’t see what I saw despite being stood to the side of him. It was an ugly incident and from there on to be honest the referee had lost control of the game. Rail finished the half strongly and were rewarded with a goal 5 minutes before half-time. Ben Jones made inroads down the left side of the area and put in a low cross to the near post to Aaron Hollingdrake who at the second attempt finished with a low shot past the stranded Liam Higginbotham for Rail to take the lead.
HARROGATE RAILWAY 1 WOODLEY SPORTS 0 (40mins)
Just reward for Aaron who has put in a lot of hard work since he joined us from Ossett Town 3 games ago. The half finished with Rail on a high and a deserved half-time lead.
HALF-TIME: HARROGATE RAILWAY 1 WOODLEY SPORTS 0
Rail continued in the same manner as the first but this time it paid double dividends as the game was virtually settled in the first 10 minutes. Paul Stansfield made another great run down our left and as he tried to cross the ball he was pulled down in the penalty area and the referee pointed straight to the spot. There seemed a long delay as the Woodley Sports players made their feelings known to the referee about the decision. The referee then produced another yellow card this time for dissent from Gary Gee. Eventually Ben stepped up and coolly dispatched the ball down the middle which easily beat the diving keeper.
HARROGATE RAILWAY 2 WOODLEY SPORTS 0 (49mins)
Rail fans had virtually no time to draw breathe as Rail increased their lead to three. Rail were awarded a corner down on our left and was swung into the middle. The ball was only half cleared away and it fell to Liam Gray on the right hand side of the penalty box. He eventually controlled the ball and unleashed a powerful shot across Liam Higginbotham and into the back of the net.
HARROGATE RAILWAY 3 WOODLEY SPORTS 0 (52mins)
Game virtually over for our visitors. Despite going three down Woodley Sports started to press forward but the Rail defence stood firm as they were put under a lot of pressure. Dan Verity and Chris Jenkinson were winning everything in the air and broke up a lot of our opponent’s attacks except for one moment. Our offside trap had been working well all afternoon but Woodley beat it in the 65th minute. Despite the players appeals the attacker squared the ball across Manny and Mike Clarke had the easiest of tap-ins to make it 3-1.
HARROGATE RAILWAY 3 WOODLEY SPORTS 1 (65mins)
This seemed to lift Woodley and Rails only response was to try and counter-attack. As the half wore on some of the tackles were getting a bit lazy from both sides and the referee seemed lenient and hesitant in producing a red card. Both Tom Jackson and Anthoni Sarcevic were guilty of bookable tackles and the only thing the referee did was give them both a verbal warning. This didn’t really have the desired effect as both sets of players seemed determined to test the referee’s patience with niggling and petty fouls and to be honest again the players virtually did what they wanted. The rest of the half was littered by substitutions and free kicks and Woodley only threatened on a couple of occasions where Manny had to be on his toes to keep the shots out. With only a few minutes remaining another Woodley Sports player found himself in the book for disagreeing with the linespersons decision to award Rail a throw-in. A pointless booking as the referee blew his whistle five minutes later. Another 3 points for the Mighty Rail on our way to relegation safety.
FULL-TIME: HARROGATE RAILWAY 3 WOODLEY SPORTS 1
BOOKINGS: 5 – Tom Jackson & Liam Gray (Rail) Anthoni Sarcevic, Gary Gee & A.N Other (Woodley)
ATTENDANCE: 85
SUPPORTERS PLAYER OF THE MATCH: PAUL STANSFIELD & LIAM GRAY
PLAYER’S MARKS OUT OF 10:
James Mann – 7
James Nettleton – 7
Tom Jackson – 7
Liam Gray – 8
Dan Verity – 7
Chris Jenkinson – 7
Nicky Darker – 7
Paul Stansfield – 8
Kevin Ryan – 7
Aaron Hollingdrake – 7
Ben Jones – 7
SUBS: Nathan Cartman – 7 (on for Nicky Darker) Dan Thirkell – not on long enough (on for Dan Verity) Steve Ball – not on long enough (on for Tom Jackson)
