Hartlepool United manager Dave Challinor reacts to 'a good point on the road' at Barnet

Pools followed up Saturday’s 3-1 win at Yeovil with a goalless draw at Barnet on Tuesday evening.

It was a close-fought affair at The Hive with neither side being able to test the goalkeepers as Hartlepool’s perfect start to the National League season on the road ended as they failed to score away from home in a league match for the first time since a goalless draw at Chorley back in August 2019.

But on the whole, Challinor was content with the result.

“It’s a good point on the road,” he said. ”It’s the first game we haven’t won away from home in the league so we obviously came here looking to win.

"What we’ve said is that, in any game, if you can’t win then it’s important not to lose. We knew how important back to back wins would be for the table.

"Now we’ve dropped some places because of results elsewhere with Wrexham winning and going above us.

"We’re disappointed with that but I couldn’t ask for anything more in terms of our defensive stuff, we just didn’t have that guile, that quality, that ruthlessness in the final third to go and get us a goal.

"The last 20-minutes of the game, I really felt like it was coming, we just couldn’t put the ball in the net.

"Matches are always about moments and goals change games. In the last 20-minutes Mols [Luke Molyneux] really came into it and looked a big threat and caused them trouble cutting inside, but they defended it well.

"I knew the game was going to be tough because they came into it on the back of a disappointing result so I didn’t expect it to be wide open or to get time on the ball.

“Our fitness in the last 20-minutes really showed and that’s when it opened up after the graft and the tightness of the game for 70-minutes, that’s when we needed to go and win it.

"It would have been a perfect away result had we got the goal.”

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