Hartlepool United's players desperate to make amends for Stevenage '“ Padraig Amond

The healing process must start tomorrow at Yeovil Town, where Pools face a test of their resolve and character, having conceded six at Stevenage last Saturday.

Amond described the defeat as “the worst of my career” and told SportMail all the players are desperate to make amends against the Glovers.

“We really need to get out there and redeem ourselves, we owe a lot of people performances now,” said the two-goal striker .

“Hopefully we can get back to winning ways tomorrow.

“The mistakes went through the whole side, from me up front, everyone on the field, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before.

“You’d probably rather have a home game on the back of that.

“It’s a good game for us – the worst thing for us is we’ve had to wait a week to put things right

“We’d have loved to have played on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday to get the frustration out of our system.

“We’ve spoken about the performance and result and we’re very keen to put things right, for the club, the supporters and management, for everyone.

“We let them all down, but probably most of all we let ourselves down badly.”

Boss Craig Hignett was “embarrassed” and “angry” at the 6-1 mauling at a club who had started the day 22nd and out of form.

Amond conceded the squad felt the same but feels it was more a case of a (very) bad day at the office rather than something which could be a regular habit.

“It was one of those horrible days,” said the 28-year-old.

“We were comfortable for the first 20-25 minutes, we were 1-0 up and thinking ‘yeah, this is a good away performance’.

“They scored after 27 minutes and unfortunately what happened after that happened.

“Every mistake we could have made seemed to lead to a goal.

“The only positive we can take is that it’s happened early in the season and we can address it.”

The Irishman said there has been a noticeable increase in desire on the training fields at Maiden Castle this week.

Hignett – and the fans – were most upset by the apparent lack of heart at Broadhall Way where the players seemed to ‘disappear’ when the goals started raining.

“There’s been a bite in training, a good intensity,” said the former Grimsby goal ace. “But there’s no point doing that if we are going to out there and lie down.

“I don’t like to use the expression down tools, I don’t think I’ve ever done that and I wouldn’t like to say that of my team-mates.

“I just think it was one of those games when everything that could go wrong did.”

And Amond says Pools can take a leaf out of Boro’s book given the way they responded to have conceded five goals in their previous game.

“The worst thing was we had been so comfortable, playing it around against a team who had just been beaten five by Grimsby,” he said.

“Maybe we can take something from Stevenage, how they reacted, we must do the same and look to come out with the three points.

“Last Saturday’s result was not a true reflection of the team and the squad of what we can do.

“We were missing a couple of players but we have a strong enough squad that we should still be able to get results.

“I hope we can get back on track tomorrow.”