Will Pools ever learn?

Think of a word that means waste, then double it ... that’s what Hartlepool United did with a match-winning position against Bristol Rovers at Victoria Park. They wasted it, squandered it, threw it away and had to make do with a point after playing well enough for 85 minutes to deserve all three. No wonder football fans get frustrated.

Pools were better in every aspect of the game as the visitors were overpowered and outplayed.
Joe Gamble headed Pools in front and late in the second half sub Antony Sweeney raced away to, slot in a second that appeared certain to be good enough to earn victory.
But in an awful, unprofessional and unforgiveable performance, they shucked it out in the last five minutes as Joe Kuffour headed one and Bryan Anthony scrambled in a second for the relieved and grateful Rovers.
Mick Wadsworth summed up how the fans felt when he said that the result felt like a defeat.
He told the club website: “After their first goal we were poor – we should have gone and got the ball, kept it and controlled things. But we didn’t.
“This is a big lesson for us – we have to be more rugged, more determined and more resolute. They are the qualities we need.
“I see so much in these players and I know we’ll be fine, but we have to learn those lessons and we have to learn them quickly.”
Mick, you have a lot of experience, but you are a relative newcomer to Pools – if we had a quid for every Pools boss who has come out with the “we need to learn these lessons” line, we’d be able to make Ken Hodcroft an offer for the club.
Not that he’d take it, mind.
Time and time again, managers have said the team needs to learn from mistakes, learn to be tougher, learn to be more professional, more clinical, more decisive, harder … the list is endless.
Do they learn?
Do they b******s.
You might know they will be fine Mick, and most of the fans feel you are doing a good job, but we have seen all this before, year after year, season after season, manager after manager.
And tell you what – it doesn’t half get boring after a while.