Keith Curle hails Hartlepool’s spirit after downing Doncaster

Posted Sunday, February 05, 2023 by PA

Hartlepool boss Keith Curle hailed the togetherness in his new-look squad as they picked up a 1-0 victory at Doncaster.

Dan Dodds’ late strike handed all three points to Hartlepool, who made 11 new signings during the January window with five arriving on deadline day.

Eight of those transfer-window arrivals – including Dodds – made up the starting XI at Doncaster, with three of the five deadline-day signings among them.

And Curle was delighted with the manner in which the squad adapted to the changes, soaked up plenty of pressure from Doncaster and secured an important win in their battle against relegation.

“The changing room needed that,” he said of the win. “We needed everybody to play their part and that was evident in the performance because there was unity throughout the group and we need to maintain that now.

“We’ve had a busy couple of days bedding players in and getting an understanding of what we require from them and formulating a game plan. We knew we were playing a very good team that can dominate possession but we had a solidity and they never really hurt us.

“We had the two best chances in the first half and scored a good goal on the counter-attack, whereas I don’t think our keeper was stretched. It was an excellent result but there are still a lot of things to improve on the training field.”

Curle explained that he left out 13-goal top scorer Josh Umerah due to a virus which prevented him from training during the week.

Doncaster boss Danny Schofield was left frustrated as his side failed to make their attacking dominance count.

Rovers enjoyed the majority of the play but found Hartlepool tough to break down throughout.

“It’s a tough one to take,” Schofield said. “There were lots of pleasing parts of our performance but ultimately we’ve ended up losing the game 1-0.

“We conceded on the counter-attack which is very disappointing because we controlled large parts of the game, created some good chances, lots of chances and some that were quite big. Everyone is very disappointed.

“It’s the final-third pieces. It’s down to moments of quality, final passes, better combination play, arriving in the box with more purpose and better quality in all moments of the attack.

“We’re finding ourselves regularly attacking on the edge of the box and it’s not easy to break down a team when they’re pinned in front of their goal. We didn’t manage to do it.

“I think we’re creating chances and that was quite evident, which the stats will back up. But ultimately we didn’t have the moments at the right time or the quality to have that finishing touch or final action.”