Simon Weaver believes Harrogate have learnt a valuable lesson this season

Posted Wednesday, April 26, 2023 by PA

Harrogate manager Simon Weaver believes his side will be stronger next season after coming through a difficult campaign to beat the drop.

The Sulphurites mathematically secured their League Two status for another year with a topsy-turvy 3-2 victory at Newport thanks to Luke Armstrong’s late winner.

Sam Folarin had cancelled out Omar Bogle’s opener before he crossed for George Thomson to put Harrogate 2-1 up in only the ninth minute.

Bogle thought he had rescued a point for the Exiles with a 79th-minute volley, but Armstrong grabbed the winner seven minutes from the end.

“We recovered from an early setback and scored two quickfire goals and it just felt like when we wanted to go through the gears, we could,” said Weaver.

“We conceded twice but we overcame that and responded positively – we bounced back in style.”

Harrogate are up to 20th, nine points above Hartlepool in 23rd with two games to play.

“We want to finish as high as we can now and keep building,” added Weaver.

“There have been a lot of changes in January. The ones that came through that eye of the storm early in the season held their nerve and they’ve integrated well with what was a new back four.

“There’s been more changes than we wanted this season, but it was about trying to find a way to stay in the Football League.

“Thankfully, we’ve done that now and a team is emerging.

“It’s been the season that we’ve learned the most about the Football League and surviving in it – holding our nerve when we had 11 or 12 players out injured.

“That knocked a young squad off their stride, but it probably forged a closer camaraderie and spirit in the camp because of the struggles.”

Newport assistant manager Joe Dunne admitted the hosts looked jaded.

“We got ourselves into a great position at the beginning of the game and then got ourselves back into it,” said Graham Coughlan’s number two.

“It was very disappointing and maybe the lack of concentration was down to tiredness. We are close to the end, but we’ve got to keep going until the end.

“We started the game brilliantly then they had two moments back-to-back and we couldn’t recover from the first goal.

“The game became bitty in the first half, but we changed things up in the second and were totally dominant.

“We should have scored more goals and their winner was from their first attack.

“That’s the way it goes. Football is like that and you have to shut that door. If we want to move forward, we have to eradicate those mistakes.”