Harrogate boss Simon Weaver praised his side’s maturity after they ended a four-game winless run in League Two with an impressive 3-1 victory at Walsall

The Sulphurites climbed to fifth thanks to Simon Power’s 25-yard free-kick, Jack Diamond’s second on the break and Luke Armstrong’s ninth goal of the season late on.

Harrogate had lost three of their previous four but Weaver said they had reined in their attacking instincts to frustrate the in-form Saddlers and the plan worked perfectly.

Weaver said: “We needed that mature performance that the lads put in. Our shape was very good and we’ve been working on being more mature, having a different perspective.

“Today we tried to frustrate the opposition. Our mindset has never been that – it’s been, right, we’ll score goals, we’ll go for you. We’ve got to mature – because we’ll just wear the lads out otherwise.

“We can’t always be aggressive with the numbers going forward, we tried to be more compact when we didn’t have the ball. Overall it was as good an away performance as we’ve put in all season.

“Away from home we’ve stuck away three chances and we could have scored five or six in the end because we tore them open on the counter-attack in the last 10 minutes.

“It’s three big points for us – suddenly you are looking upwards again rather than worrying we are sliding.

“No one has been moping around and the three points feel satisfying after picking the problems out as a team, working together as one.”

Walsall boss Matt Taylor was unhappy about the award of the free-kick for Harrogate’s opener but admitted his side were second best until a late rally saw Kieran Phillips salvage a consolation.

It was the Saddlers’ first league defeat in seven and Taylor said: “It was disappointing.

“I don’t feel we worked hard enough, I don’t think we picked up enough second balls and when you don’t do that against teams at this level, you’ve always got an uphill struggle.

“However, they have had four attempts on our goal and scored three goals – we’ve had numerous attempts and only scored one goal.

“We’ve got to use this as a reset – there are no excuses as to why we lost the game today. We lost the game because we didn’t deserve anything from it.

“The reason we didn’t deserve anything from it is that we didn’t match the opposition’s effort and desire – and when we got into good key areas, unlike us, we made too many wrong decisions.

“However, we’ve lost one game in seven in the league – yes we’ve been beaten 3-1 at home and the manner of the defeat was disappointing but we’re a good team.”