Lee’s delight at impressive Pools
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HARTLEPOOL United manager Graeme Lee was left “delighted” by his side’s impressive 2-1 win at Harrogate Town.
It was the hosts who started the brighter of the two sides as on-loan Sunderland winger Jack Diamond brought a routine save out of Pools number one Ben Killip.
But the first real opportunity brought the first goal of the game midway through the first half.
Former Pools striker Luke Armstrong has enjoyed a productive first season with Harrogate and he struck his 13th goal of the season against his old club with a typically clinical finish.
Lee’s side reacted in fine fashion and got themselves back on levelterms on 25 minutes with a stunning finish from in-form forward Luke Molyneux.
He cut in front of the wing and produced a sublime curling effort into the top corner of Mark Oxley’s net before taking the acclaim of his team-mates and the impressive band of travelling support.
Boosted by their equaliser, Pools had the better of the opportunities throughout the remainder of the half with Mark Shelton and Tom Crawford both going close.
That momentum continued into the second half and the turnaround was complete just after the hour-mark when Omar Bogle teed up David Ferguson to crash an effort beyond Oxley.
Despite some late pressure, Harrogate were unable to get themselves back into the game and Pools collected a fine three points to leave their manager a happy man.
“We started all right, the performance was there, it was just the little details,” Lee told the club website.
“We didn’t protect the ball into the frontman on two occasions and on the second one, Luke Armstrong has bulldozed through, as he does, and taken his chance.
“Again, the response was good, we kept doing what we are doing and as the game went on, as the second half went on, I felt some of the football we played was fantastic.
“We got into some fantastic areas and it was not a bad finish from Luke Molyneux.
“After that, I felt there was one team, us, on the front foot and I was delighted with how it was. It was just about how could we do that in the second half.”