Jack Muldoon’s treble sees Harrogate return to winning ways against Oldham

Posted Sunday, January 23, 2022 by PA

Jack Muldoon hit a hat-trick as Harrogate ended a run of four successive league defeats with a 3-0 home triumph over foot-of-the-table Oldham.

Muldoon’s treble, which took the 32-year-old striker’s season tally into double figures, also left the troubled Latics without a win in eight league matches – their worst run since August 2018.

The lively Muldoon opened the scoring just past the quarter-hour mark when he played the ball out to Lewis Page on the left flank and then raced into the six-yard box to get on the end of the full-back’s dangerously delivered cross.

Oldham, meanwhile, have not scored a first-half league goal on the road all season, with that run extended after home keeper Mark Oxley charged out of his goal to smother at Dylan Bahamboula’s feet.

Luke Armstrong should have twice doubled the Sulphurites’ lead early in the second half but, after being teed up by Muldoon, he fired the first opportunity straight at keeper Jayson Leutwiler and stabbed the next chance wide from eight yards.

It was left to Muldoon to add a second when he stole in to win possession after Callum Whelan was put under pressure in his own half by Brahima Diarra and charged through on goal before calmly finding Leutwiler’s bottom-right corner.

The former Lincoln striker then claimed the match ball in the 89th minute with a thumping edge-of-the-box strike into Leutwiler’s top-left corner following Armstrong’s square pass.