Hartlepool give Mick a happy return to Cumbrians

Sep 11 2011 by James Hunter, Sunday Sun

IT was a day of contrasting fortunes in Cumbria as Hartlepool extended their unbeaten start to the season and the pain continued for Carlisle.

Pools staged a first-half smash-and-grab raid as a goal from Gary Liddle and a stunning strike from Adam Boyd gave them a 2-0 lead, against the run of play.

A second-half penalty, won and converted by Rory Loy, gave the Blues a lifeline but Hartlepool hung on to make it a new club record seven-match unbeaten start to the campaign, while Carlisle suffered their fourth straight defeat in all competitions.

Pools head coach Mick Wadsworth was delighted to make a winning return to his former club, saying: “Setting a new club record is great for the fans and for the players and that is testament to what they have done, they have worked very hard.

“It was a difficult game by virtue of the fact that Carlisle had lost two or three games in a week after a good start.

“They were on the same points as us before that so we knew they weren’t mugs.

“They proved that throughout the game, they tested us but we overcame it and were definitely the better team.

“We got one goal, then two goals and that put us in a great position and had Gary Liddle’s volley [which hit the bar] gone in, it would have been an even better position.”

Wadsworth felt his side were the better team but the outcome would have been very different had Carlisle managed to take some of the hatful of chances they created in the first half. Blues boss Greg Abbott admitted: “Goals are what it is all about.

“We lost count of the number of crosses we put in and the chances we created only to concede two awful goals.

“Their second goal was a great strike but their first was a joke.

“Defensively, we probably handed them the game.

“I feel sorry for the players because they tried to do the right things.

“It was not to be today, for some reason.” Going into the game on a three-game losing streak, Abbott tried to stop the rot by making five changes to the side that began the midweek Johnstone’s Paint Trophy defeat at Accrington Stanley.