Boss hails ‘strong’ performance as spoils are shared

POOLS MANAGER RUES LACK OF LUCK AGAINST DONS

HARTLEPOOL UNITED AFC WIMBLEDON 0 0

HARTLEPOOL United manager Paul Hartley praised his side after they battled to their first point of the season with a goalless draw against AFC Wimbledon.

Pools went into the game looking to bounce back from last weekend’s 4-0 opening day defeat at Walsall and Hartley opted make a number of changes.

Former Newcastle United defender Jamie Sterry returned to the starting lineup and Rollin Menayese made his debut as part of a three-man backline.

After seeing off an early effort from distance from Jack Hastie, it was the visitors that enjoyed the better of the first-half as they created a number of opportunities to open the scoring.

Boosted by their opening day win against Gillingham, the Dons looked confident throughout as the likes of Ayoub Assal, Lee Brown and George Marsh all had sights of goal all trying their luck without success in the opening 20 minutes.

After weathering that early pressure, Pools could have taken the lead when Jack Hastie’s tantalising cross narrowly evaded a number of his team-mates in the visitors area.

But perhaps the best chance for the hosts came when Josh Umerah and Rollin Menayese brought a fine double-stop out of Dons keeper Nik Tzanev.

And there was a late chance for defender Euan Murray to snatch the points when he rattled the visitors crossbar in the closing stages.

Hartley was pleased with his side’s reaction to their opening day defeat against the Saddlers and believes they could have taken all three points with ‘a little bit of luck’.

The Pools boss told the club website: “I thought it was a strong performance, I thought the second-half we were really strong.

“Sometimes you need a little bit of luck in football and I certainly didn’t think we got that today in the second-half.

“It was a great response from the players after last week, I knew I would get that.

“They’ve trained really well all week, we changed the system today, and we looked really strong.”