By Albatross
February 16 2003

Well, we didn't lose - and that makes a change on live TV! However, we should and could have won - as Newell himself said in his post-match interview. Albatross reflects on the game at Bootham Crescent. Well, if you'd offered me a draw before the game, I'd have taken it; playing York - a team well into the playoff hunt - away from home, I'm sure a lot of fans would have done the same. However looking back on the match you can't help feeling that this was a game we could - and probably should - have won.

York's strategy mainly seemed to consist of getting the ball to Parkin and seeing what he could do with it; Westwood had a good game at the back against an awkward customer, and York were definately lacking in penetration.

Pools best attacking moves seemed to involve Humphreys down the left; especially in the second half, which Pools dominated. From the Main Stand we were given a great view of Ritchie tearing the York defence to pieces with regularity. So much of our attacking play went through him that Clarke on the other wing barely had a look-in after the break.

Although Pools had much more of the play, and were playing some good stuff, all too often the final ball was lacking; I lost track of the number of occasions that a Pools player received the ball in the box or close to it, but with his back to goal. Up front Eifion and Boyd looked possibly a little lightweight as a partnership, and it may be that they are too similar to make an effective strike force. I couldn't help feeling that we could have done with the extra strength and presence of Hendo a lot earlier.

It says a lot that the Match Sponsor's Man of the Match was Chris Brass, a defender, and that the Sky choice was Ingham in the York goal; while the Minstermen did threaten on occasion, they spent large periods of the second half pinned down in their own half of the field, and weren't allowed to get much going in terms of attacking moves as the back line, ably assisted by the impressive Widds, denied York space and time, and then usually succeeded in playing the ball away to launch another Pools attack.

If there was one bad point in the defence, it was distribution. Barron especially put more than his fair share of passes astray. Meanwhile Taff generally had a decent game, making some good claims from crosses and coping fairly well with anything that did head towards goal. About the only moment when we did look seriously in trouble was during the first half when a curling cross was whipped in from the left; it was a good ball, but even so Parkin shouldn't have been allowed to get in a free header at the far post.

Clarke was - well, I don't know really! As others have said in the past, he showed an alarming tendency to cut in and play the ball with his left foot, and on one occasion this gave the York defence the extra second or two they needed to get back and block his shooting chance, and he should have done better when sent clear as well - though Ingham did very well.

Although I am disappointed we didn't get the win, Pools did avoid defeat on camera at last, and more than that showed that they can play some good stuff given the chance. There was plenty of effort, we went close on several occasions, and far from being one of the toughest games of the season we dominated against a side that's currently 6th in the table, in front of their own fans.

There was also good news as the teams below Pools didn't have things going their own way yesterday; and so we're eleven points clear of Rushden (who didn't play), and eighteen ahead of the Playoff spots. Even though most of those teams have games in hand - three in the case of Wrexham - there isn't a team in the division that wouldn't swap places with us. Nine unbeaten then, although Saturday will be another potentially hard game as the resurgent Swans visit the Vic.