Safety brings freedom for Simon Weaver’s Harrogate Town

The Sulphurites went into Saturday’s fixture off the back of four straight defeats and having lost eight of their previous 10 League Two matches.

But, with safety confirmed courtesy of Oldham Athletic’s Easter Monday reverse at Forest Green, the Wetherby Road outfit played with far more freedom and served up a much-improved performance.

Jack Diamond’s brace either side of Rory McArdle’s header did the damage, though Harrogate created enough chances to have won the game by a significantly greater margin.

“As a team, it feels like the weight of the world had been lifted from everyone’s shoulders,” Weaver reflected. “I think there’s been some tension, pressure does take its toll, but today I thought we played with a freedom and there were some outstanding individual performances.

“It was tangible. I could feel it. There’s no point me saying we did this or this different in training, the Oldham result last week was a big relief for us knowing that we were mathematically safe.

“Relegation wasn’t even talked about, but you could feel that a bit of fear had crept in because these are honest lads and they’d realised we were slipping down the table.”

Harrogate Town: Cracknell; Thomson, McArdle, Burrell, Sheron; Power, Pattison, Austerfield, Diamond; Armstrong (Martin 84), Muldoon. Unused substitutes: Giles, Beck, Legge, Ilesanmi, O’Boyle.

Carlisle United: Howard; Simeu (Omotoye 50), Feeney, Mellish; Riley, Gibson, Devine (Mellor 80), Dickenson, Armer; Patrick, Alessandra (Dennis 68). Unused substitutes: Norman, McDonald, Whelan, Roberts.

Referee: R Welch (County Durham).