Dave Challinor delighted with Hartlepool United's 'unbelievable' intensity in 2-0 win over Notts County

A second-half brace from Nicky Featherstone saw Pools claim a fourth straight home win at The Vic and climb to within a point of the top seven with 11 matches to go.

And it was the intensity and endeavour of his side’s performance against The Magpies that particularly pleased the Hartlepool manager.

“It’s a big win, things move on quickly in football but we have to take a lot from it,” Challinor said.

“We should take plenty of confidence because we wouldn’t have been able to produce that performance two months ago, so the players must take all the credit for that. To a man today, I thought they were outstanding.

“The intensity has completely changed, I don’t want to be critical of how things were done previously but what I wanted the side to do when I first arrived, they couldn’t do.

“Now they can because they’ve trusted what we’ve demanded of them. They worked their absolute socks off and the intensity was unbelievable.

“They backed and trusted their bodies to press for 90-minutes against a good Notts County side. It was a complete performance and massively pleasing from my point of view.

“It’s a big result but it just makes the next game bigger and hopefully, we can build and build because it sets us up massively for two massive games coming up against Boreham Wood and Solihull.”