Hartlepool United are in the League Two play-off places but Dave Challinor won't amend his pre-season objective

Pools fans will have an added spring in their step after another incredible day for their side as they came from two goals down to beat high-flying Harrogate Town.

David Ferguson, Mark Cullen and Matty Daly each scored within seven minutes of one another to turn the game on it’s head as Pools continue to show no signs of letting up from the crest of the wave they have been riding since earning promotion back to the Football League.

But for boss Challinor the objective remains the same despite such an encouraging start to life back at this level.

“Aspirations for me don’t change until we get to 50 points and then after that they change. We need to get there as quickly as we can,” he said.

“I hope that’s sooner rather than later. If that’s by early in the New Year, then you look at where you’re at but at the moment the aspiration is game-by-game.

“The longer we go, hopefully we don’t suffer more injuries and we get players back and we see where we’re at come January when we can strengthen and hopefully with us looking up in the table.”

But while Challinor may be reserved, Pools supporters can rejoice following a remarkable comeback against a team hotly tipped to be contesting for promotion come the end of the season.

It comes in a week where Pools also gained their first three points on the road after a double from Cullen inspired them to a win at Bradford City.

And asked what the last week could do for his side, Challinor told The Mail it will give them belief before praising his squads resilience.

“It should do an awful lot, [but] I’d much prefer to get the result not in the manner we did in terms of having to come from behind.

“At some point that feeling, and that emotion, will mean there’ll certainly be belief that if we’re 2-0 down and you show some character and inner belief we can still go and win the game.

“It’s just getting some consistency and hopefully we’ll do that with winning that away game.

“The way football goes with you being home-away-home-away you don’t get much consistency when you’re losing away. So we need to try and put a run together.

Challinor added: “We had a conversation at the training ground last week and I asked the players about resilience and who would describe themselves as being resilient, and lots of hands went up.

“It’s easy to do that in an environment that’s in a room like this, or in a gym or wherever it might be.

“Go and show your resilience when you’re 2-0 down at home when you’ve just won 17 out of the last 20 games and you’ve got 5,500 of our fans desperate for you to get back into the game.

“That is massively helped by a change in momentum and changes in momentum come in goals, we got that and we never looked back from there.”

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