Mansfield Report

By Eggy_Poolie
September 13 2006

3 899 people showed up to watch Pools achieve their most comfortable victory of the season. Goals by Joel Porter and Gavin Strachan enough to win it on the night

A closely fought contest at Victoria Park was won after sub Joel Porter came on to score and set up Gavin Strachan. The win makes it 2 wins out of 2 at Victoria Park, the best run since last November when we beat MK Dons and Neale Coopers Gillingham side.

Pools started the game and dominated early on. Pools main playmaker was wide man Matty Robson who, on several, linked up with Liddle to make some great runs down the left and tested the Mansfield keeper several times with some good shots.

Pools dominated the play and Dimi had little to do but he made several comfortable saves from long shots as the Mansfield strike force. Hartlepool came closest to breaking the deadlock after two good headers from James Brown and Tony Sweeeny.

At half time Hartlepool deserved to be winning but the second half started with Mansfield keeping the ball and creating most of the chances. Mansfield came very close to scoring when Birchall got one-on-one with Dimi but Darren Williams tracked back to make a saving tackle.

In the 62nd minute Joel Porter was brought on for Jon Daly and he instantly got into the action. After a neat 1-2 with Matty Robson, Porter lifted the ball into the area. Brown controlled the ball, knocked it over the defender then smashed the ball straight at the goalkeeper when he really should have scored.

Pools finally took the lead after Gary Liddle burst forward with the ball and played it in to James Brown. He controlled the ball and tapped it back to Porter who placed the ball into the bottom corner with just over 10 minutes left.

Pools looked comfortable with the ball and then secured victory when Joel Porter curled a shot the deflected off Gavin Strachan. Both players ran off to celebrate but it has officially gone down as a Gavin Strachan goal.

So are happy days here again. It is still someway off the performances of 2 seasons ago but we are winning games and scoring goals.