Spirited Harrogate Hockey Club Ladies 1st XI net last-gasp leveller at Timperley

Having played out a stalemate at home to Durham University 2nds in their previous outing, the Ainsty Road outfit added another useful point to their tally courtesy of what captain Lucy Wood felt was a spirited display.

“This result shows how quickly we have improved over the last couple of games,” she said.

"Timperley were in second place in the table and beat us 2-0 earlier in the season, but we should have won on Saturday.

"We have a great team spirit and we never give up.”

Hosts Timperley surprised Harrogate with a defensive game-plan which was designed to try and catch their visitors on the counter-attack.

And from an aerial pass out of defence, the hosts took a controversial first-quarter lead as ‘Gate goalkeeper Coral Langridge came out to the side of her ‘D’ and kicked the ball to one of her team-mates.

In the process, she was adjudged to have taken out an onrushing forward, even though she had played the ball first, resulting in Timperley being awarded a penalty-flick which they converted.

Having struggled for fluency initially, the second half saw ‘Gate produce some more cohesive team-play with Julia Corominas and Anna Blyth going close to equalising before the visitors eventually did level matters at the death.

Jacs Smith exchanged passes with Grace Schofield-Mell, then played an incisive ball which cut out three defenders and found player-of-the-match Wood speeding in at the far post to net a first-time equaliser with the last touch of the game.

A point keeps Harrogate seventh in the table ahead of this Saturday’s home clash with Didsbury Northern (1.30pm).