A comfortable and deserved victory for Rovers.
I thought prior to the red card we moved the ball sharply and played some decent football, but struggled with the final ball, with both wide players fairly disappointing. Harrogate set up with five at the back, and clearly seemed happy to play for a point and hit us on the counter attack even before the sending off. However, once they were (correctly) reduced to ten men, we switched the ball from side to side and the chances gradually came, with their keeper making a couple of brilliant saves from MacDonald and Hemmings before we finally broke the deadlock. It was a superb dribble and finish from Warrington for the opening goal.
Following our second goal, Harrogate finally showed some genuine attacking intent and did cause us some problems, largely through the pace and skill of Diamond, and we were indebted to a brilliant goalline clearance from Clarke and a superb block from MacDonald, to keep a clean sheet. However, we had been much the better side and the victory was deserved.
Individually, I thought both the central midfielders were excellent, MacDonald had another solid game and Murphy's distribution was very good. However, the man of the match was Lewis Warrington, who was fantastic once again.
It is ridiculously tight at the top of the table now, with just three points separating second place from seventh. Hopefully we can finally produce an away performance at a stuttering Sutton side on Saturday.