Harrogate Town 3 Notts County 1: Long-overdue home win had been coming, says Simon Weaver

Winless at Wetherby Road since seeing off Salford City at the end of September, the Sulphurites followed up encouraging recent showings against Swindon and Wrexham with a fine 90-minute display.

Ahead early on through George Thomson’s excellent first-time finish, Abraham Odoh showed predatory instincts to put the Sulphurites 2-0 up before half-time.

Jodi Jones halved the arrears in the 67th minute with a stunning effort from a long-range free-kick, though any hopes of a County comeback were extinguished just a couple of minutes later when Matty Daly’s clever finish restored Town’s two-goal cushion.

"I’m very pleased with the overall performance,” Town boss Simon Weaver reflected.

"We’ve not wanted it to define us, that [home] record that needed to be better, we’ve just used it as a motivating factor. I think that we have been getting better for a while now. You look at the Swindon game, the Wrexham game and you think that win is coming.

"You have to be resilient in sport, and while we didn’t get the fruits of our labour immediately, you’ve got to really deserve it in this game, and we have done today.

“We started fast. The work-ethic from the players, we must have covered so much ground. The cohesion without the ball gave us opportunities on it and we knew when to change gear from defence to attack.

“There were some good flowing counter-attacks, we caused them problems and put them on the back foot. We had to ride the storm a bit in the second half, they scored with a fantastic free-kick, but it was the perfect response going up the other end and scoring shortly afterwards. It was a good day for us today.”

Town finished Saturday’s contest having enjoyed just 34 percent of possession, but despite this they managed plenty more shots at goal – and efforts on target – than their promotion-chasing visitors.

It is not the first time this season that Harrogate have performed better and come out on top having seen significantly less of the ball than their opponents, and Weaver insists that he has no issues with his players ceding possession as long as they play with purpose when they do have it.

"I said to the lads at half-time ‘don’t be worried about the possession that they have had’ because they’re not getting anywhere, apart from one chance,” he added.

"The possession was with their goalkeeper for perhaps 10 or 15 percent of that time and it was winding down the clock, which, at 2-0 up, I haven’t got a problem with.

"Our possession was with a real purpose, so I’d take that 30 percent statistic any day.”

Saturday’s victory was not only Town’s first at home in eight attempts, but their first anywhere since a 1-0 success at Walsall, some six matches previous.

And, Weaver stressed the importance of capitalising on such a result if his players are serious about elevating themselves towards the top half of the League Two standings.

"The lads are learning and I think that we are evolving,” he continued. “It’s getting better, but when we come back in to work it’s about trying to really take advantage of this three points.

"When you look at the teams up to eighth place, it’s feasible that we can catch them and we have got to be ambitious and expect more from each other and that we can climb the table.”