By Eggy_Poolie
August 19 2006

Probably not the best game we will see this season but at last we have scored. Lee Bullocks late equaliser earned Pools their first home point in a game in which Pools could have got a lot more.

The game started very brightly when Joel Porter hit the crossbar after about 1 minuted but it soon turned sour. After 5 minutes Martin Phillips creeped past Micky Nelson to tap the ball into the back of the net. As far as chances where concerned - that was it for the first half.

At times the challenges were flying in fast and furious and the ref failed to take controll and after 37 minutes Joel Porter was taken off injured and replaced by David Foley. Foley looked lively and at times it looked like he was going to improve the game all by itself.

The crowd certainly showed their feelings towards a dull, negative first half performance and the player were booed off when the half time whistle went. At half time Gavin Strachan was swapped with Mark Tinkler.

Hartlepool enjoyed a plenty of pressure at the start of the second half and created by far the better chances. David Foley came close and James Brown then had his cross/shot hit off the crossbar with Eifion Williams running in at the back post.

David Foley then came very close to levelling the scores when his shot was well saved by Nathan Abbeys legs.

The game seemed to die down after that but Hartlepool still were the better side and won numerous amounts of corners. In the 79th minute Nelson took a kick from one of the Torquay forwards and a small fight broke out. Nelson,obviously outraged got himself into the penalty area for the resultant free-kick. Dimi knocked the ball forward and Nelson won the header. His header was straight into the path of Lee Bullock who placed the ball past Abbey from the edge of the six yard box.

After the goal, Hartlepool looked for a second but nothing was came. Torquay were obviously happy with a point and tried to keep the ball in the corner.

At the end Hartlepool will be happy with the point and their first goal in 350 minutes of football.