Not a game for the purists but a well earned point.

Linesman's flag saved us in the 4th minute , by giving offside and a goal being disallowed.

Close call for Man of the match for Pools' with Clark covering just about every blade of grass and making a nuisance of himself, but pushed close by Budtz who apart from a poor punch, caught everything that came into him and made a couple of decent saves. A last gasp block from Collins in the last minute of stoppage time giving us the point, when i was ready to put my head in my hands thinking we had lost it.

Not a lot up front, but hopefully that can be rectified on Monday with the return of Porter.

Skarz give the left hand side of defence more stability in my opinion, and he should start again on Monday.

Two fairly poor sides and to be honest if we had performed to any level the 3 points were there for the taking. But I'll take the point as it puts us 1 point further clear of the bottom 4 than last week, and has stopped one of our relegation rivals over taking us. Any win in the last 4 whether the winning goal comes off someone's backside should be enough now to keep us in this league next season.

Clark almost man of the match? I can't understand everyones love affair with him in the middle of the park, he is so slow in the middle and the midfield constantly gets over ran. He didn't have a bad game but he absolutely wasted in midfield and has been for months.

Another poor bit of management from Turner IMO.

I am also puzzled by people rating Ben Clark in the centre of midfield.

He looks like a centre back playing in midfield (which is exactly what he is). He takes too many touches at times and slows the game down, he heads it at times when he should be trying to get it down his opposite number generally has more mobility than him as well which causes us problems. I'm not knocking his work rate or commitment to the cause he'll put his body in anywhere but he is not a midfield player and never will be.

Agreed.

I don't want to be seen to slag Clarky off because I'm a huge admirer of him but he's just not a centre midfielder.

The 2 games against Hereford stick out in my mind this season. He got over ran all game by their tall black mad in the middle and made Clarky look useless.

When we play badly people always suggest Clarky for man of the match as a last option, regardless of how he plays.

MadJohn- I agree about Boland but people's opinion of him seem to be very short sighted. He was absolutely hopeless in League 1 last season, had an excellent game against Colchester on the first day and people seem to think that he has been a huge loss this season. I really don't think he has been.

I thought he was hopeless last season, one of a few who didn't make the step up to League One.

We definitely missed his style rather than the man himself I agree with you there.

we've never really replaced Mark Tinkler in there - although I hope Jones may eventually grow into a player in the Tinkler mould.
We've had some cracking good midfielders with bags of skill and flair over the years, but we are more workmanlike in that department at the moment
Hopefully Rowell will get a couple of outings if we can get ourselves safe reasonably early enough, i.e. if we win the next two I think Leeds and Bristol should be meaningless (which I hope they will be)

I don't have a "love affair" with Clark and agree I would play him at centre half, I just thought his work rate yesterday warranted in my opinion him being man of the match, it all about opinions mate, the saving tackle by Collins in the last minuts and his play in general could have made him along with Budtz man of the match. Just an opinion on what I saw.

You're pinning too many hopes on Rowell. He might get to be good in time, but not yet. A more sensible judgement for now would be to pit him against Turnbull and the late lamented Maidens.

That's a player who will take a lot of replacing. Don't hold your breath.