Leyton Orient 1 Hartlepool United 1

Nov 6 2011 Sunday Sun

MICK WADSWORTH hopes his Pools side have put their miserable October behind them with a solid performance and a welcome point at Orient.

They had suffered five losses from six games last month and went into this game on the back of successive away losses.

But they were more like the team that went nine games unbeaten at the start of the season as they defended with the organisation and came away with a positive outlook.

Even when reduced to 10 men in the last 20 minutes after Paul Murray was red-carded for a second booking, they were never in danger.

Neil Austin scored for Pools, slotting in a second half penalty, but they felt they should have been ahead on three minutes.

Peter Hartley met an Evan Horwood corner and his header seemed to have crossed the line before it was cleared by Jimmy Smith. They protested furiously with the referee and his assistant who had a clear view of the incident.

“It’s difficult to tell and the reaction of my players and some of theirs said it was over the line. But its hard to see and on DVD its not clear and we can’t do anything about it,” said Wadsworth.

“The second yellow for Paul Murray wasn’t malicious or with intent, it was a foul, a run of the mill foul. How can it be a yellow?

“For the penalty, we were in between two defenders and should they have been punished? It’s not for me to call.

“But we had to fight for all we got today, a few decisions went against us.

“We didn’t deserve to be one down and we caused them problems.”

After Hartley’s chance, Pools took the game to the home side and created a number of first-half openings.

Antony Sweeney was denied a goal on his return to the side by the legs of ex-Sunderland keeper Ben Alnwick, while Leon McSweeney, freed by Pools last summer, got in the way of a goalbound James Poole effort.

Poole put in a tremendous shift up front with Andy Monkhouse, and both had chances.

After falling behind when George Porter opened Pools up down the left and squared for Dean Cox to tap in, the visitors continued to press the Os back.

Monkhouse headed on for Poole who raced in on goal, but picked his spot and it was too close to Alnwick.

Then Monkhouse headed an Austin cross wide from 12 yards after being picked out.

But they were rewarded when Monkhouse was bundled over in the area and Austin slotted in from 12 yards.

“We were the better side and looked like the team we were in September,” said a satisfied Wadsworth. “We hope it’s a turnaround game for us and a new challenge, a new era.

“It’s been a fantastic start to the season and we hope to be back.

“We shuffled the team and made changes and we couldn’t shuffle enough players across quick enough to help out.

“We changed the format a bit to stop them attacking.

“The defence was back on form, defended well, blocked and stopped them from creating chances. Sometimes a performance like that and result means you feel like a win. I know they will be disappointed but we came back at them.”