Sunday 28 August 2011 16:17, UK
Manager Mick Wadsworth hailed super-sub James Poole whose two second-half strikes earned Hartlepool a 3-1 win against Rochdale.
The visitors' eighth-minute opener from Adam Boyd was cancelled out by Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro's volley in the opening 20 minutes and Rochdale were in the ascendancy going into the interval. But Poole, a 36th-minute replacement for hamstring-injury victim Colin Nish, fired two terrific goals to sink Steve Eyre's men. "We made a couple of minor adjustments at half-time, we really got through to the players and James Poole has gone on to win it with two fabulous goals," said Wadsworth. "He doesn't tend to score tap-ins, though I'd like him to! That way he could have gone on to get his hat-trick. He has a superb left foot and when he gets free from defenders he can finish as he did, we see it every day in training and he did a great job." Wadsworth added: "Winning is always so much sweeter when you have achieved it through adversity, and when you think of the players we'd lost through injury, this result is testament to the depth of the squad. It was a terrific performance."