Gateshead defender gives interesting verdict on Hartlepool United defeat

It was an eventful afternoon for Gateshead defender Tinkler who was involved in two key incidents against Hartlepool.

The former Middlesbrough man, who came close to joining Pools a number of years ago, was the man on the receiving end of Josh Umerah’s challenge which saw the striker shown a straight red card early in the second half before the 27-year-old levelled the scores with his first goal of the season.

Tinkler was on hand to power home from close range after latching onto a rebound from Joel Dixon's excellent stop to keep out Marcus Dinanga.

With the scores level, and Pools down to 10 men heading into the final 25 minutes of the game, it felt as though the Heed would be the ones who would take all three points if there were to be a winner.

But in the end it was Pools who snatched victory late in the day through Emmanuel Dieseruvwe's second goal of the game, with Tinkler believing Umerah’s red card actually worked in Hartlepool’s favour in the end.

"I think when you take away the goals, I know they’re the important bit, but the performance and everything that we’re trying to do, we’re doing,” said Tinkler.

"We’ve dominated the game for 90 minutes.

"At times you can argue we were really patient, but without that little bit of a killer instinct. I think going down to 10 men helped Hartlepool in the end because it put them into that low block and it’s the hardest thing to play against. You see the top teams in the world struggling with it. But we’ve got to take it on the chin.

"As a defender we’ve got to take a bit of responsibility because in the last two games the opposition have had six chances and scored four goals. So we need to do more in that sense.

“I think if we do that in the 44 games we’ve got left, we’ll win a lot more than we’ll lose. It’s tough to take but it’s time to move on.”