Hartlepool United injury news: Pools sweating on fitness of centre-back trio ahead of Rochdale clash

When Sass-Davies was forced off six minutes before half time during Easter Monday's impressive win over rivals Gateshead, Pools were left without a recognised centre-back.

Parkes, by some distance his side's best defender this season, missed Monday's game following a tussle with former Pools frontman Mike Fondop in Good Friday's defeat to Oldham. Waterfall, who replaced Parkes at the break in Greater Manchester, was also sidelined after injuring himself in training on Sunday.

That left Pools to play for almost an hour with a makeshift back three comprising David Ferguson, a left-back who has admittedly slotted into the role seamlessly in recent weeks, Jack Hunter, a central midfielder who hadn't featured for the best part of a month after being struck down by illness, and teenage right-back Louis Stephenson, who was thrust back into the side after serving a one-game suspension following his red card against Dagenham and Redbridge. Despite the difficult circumstances, Pools looked comfortable for large parts of the afternoon against a Gateshead side who are the third highest scorers in the division and needed to win to tighten their grip on a play-off place. Although Pools conceded twice from set-plays following careless errors from goalkeeper Adam Smith, the cobbled together back line stood up to the test posed by Gateshead, who had scored 11 goals in their last two meetings with Pools.

In spite of their heroics, Limbrick will surely be hoping to have at least one of his recognised centre-halves back in contention ahead of Saturday's trip to Rochdale, with Pools fans set to descend on Spotland dressed in flat caps as part of their annual fancy dress tradition. While Sass-Davies, who has started all of the last nine games and established himself as an integral part of the Pools side in recent weeks, looks unlikely to feature in Greater Manchester, Limbrick admits both Parkes and Waterfall have returned to light training.

"First of all, I want to point out the amazing performance by the defenders who came in - and the whole team," he said.

"If you'd told us before the game we'd have had Hunter, Fergie and Louis in a back three and that we'd keep a clean sheet from open play against Gateshead, one of the better ball-playing teams in the league, then I'm not sure anyone would have believed it. I thought they were fantastic.

"Hunter had been sick and had only trained for one day before the game; he'd hardly eaten, I don't even want to say what he was like. He was outstanding, he was brilliant.

"Billy is struggling this week so we'll have to see where he is for this weekend.

"We're hoping that we have at least one back - either Waterfall or Parkes, they're doing some training. We'd prefer to have some centre-backs ready for the game than none at all. It will be difficult to leave some of those players out of the team if there's a centre-back available because I thought they were absolutely fantastic and did the job really well."

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