Matthew Bates on Scott Harrison's red card and a hard-earned point for Hartlepool United

The central defender was booked twice, oncee for pulling back an opponent and the other squaring up to Boreham Wood's Bruno Andrade, in the 0-0 draw at Victoria Park yesterday.

And Bates reckons the man in the middle got his call correct.

"I felt it was a red card to be honest, I was quite close to it, he was pulling and a bit of 50-50, but he was tugging," said Bates.

"It’s a bit of concentration with him and he has to learn from it as it’s a problem for him since he came to the club – we have to work on it.

"It was a feisty game at times, we didn’t want them to have it easy and we had to be physical. It doesn’t come naturally to some of our players, but they all put a shift in. Last minute Loachy [Scott Loach] made a great save and we deserved a point."

Having seen his side hard done to in midweek, the luck was on Pools's side this weekend, as they withstood 25 minutes with 10 men, under intense pressure from the promotion-chasing visitors.

"I thought it was going to be a good point when we were down to ten men, but we had planned for three all week," said the stand-in boss.

"I felt we would do well with a point after going down,

"We did hit the post first-half, even if the first-half wasn’t very memorable. A good point all round."