Daniel Kemp’s quality leaves John Askey purring

Posted Saturday, April 08, 2023 by PA

Hartlepool manager John Askey revelled in the performance of hat-trick hero Daniel Kemp after his side’s resounding 4-1 away victory over Grimsby.

The Mariners fell apart defensively after drawing level early in the second half, after Kemp had scored the opener before the break, with the man of the moment scoring twice in four minutes with 15 to go to push his side back ahead.

Josh Umerah added a fourth as Hartlepool completed a league double over the Mariners in emphatic fashion with a ruthless second-half display.

It was a big performance and result from Hartlepool in their quest for survival in League Two and their manager was beaming with pride as he analysed the game.

Askey said: “We had to dig in at times and rode our luck, but because the players are playing with such freedom and confidence they ended up getting the goals we needed and they were really good goals.

“[Kemp’s] goals were brilliant and Wes [McDonald] has come on and made a huge difference and it was great to come away with the win with the support we had who can go home happy.

“When [Kemp] gets in the box with the space he is a really good finisher and to have him the team with that quality is brilliant, but we’ve got a lot of players with that level of quality on the ball.

“I had a go at him last Saturday because he was coming deep for the ball which was not where we wanted him. The higher up the pitch we can get him, the more goals he is going to score and the more problems he is going to cause the opposition and he did that today.”

On the other hand, it was another poor outing at home for the Mariners who have won just four league games at home all season.

Town boss Paul Hurst added: “Been a while since we’ve had this feeling, you look at the stats and they don’t fit the result.

“I’ve got no qualms in the end with who the better team were in the first half, we started the second half well but we got level, and my honest feeling was that the penalty challenge was outside the box.

“After that, we had a lot of situations in and around the box and they blocked some shots, but in the end, we conceded bad goals and lost our defensive organisation. Having equalised you’d hope that we’d kick on and it looked like we might for a moment but it went south after the penalty.

“I guarantee there’ll be people who weren’t happy with the side that was selected and I guarantee there were people calling for certain players to play that did and didn’t perform well.”