Hartlepool United manager reveals Pools held team meeting in a bid to put FA Trophy debacle behind them
Hartlepool United manager Nicky Featherstone has revealed that players and staff held a team meeting on Monday as Pools bid to put Saturday's humiliating FA Trophy defeat behind them.
Pools were on the wrong end of one of the worst results in their entire history last time out as they were dumped out of the Trophy in ignominious fashion following a 2-1 defeat to Northern Premier League Division One Midlands side Anstey Nomads.
While Featherstone's tenure has been, for the most part, generally positive so far, his time at the helm has been bookended by two nightmarish cup exits.
Most fans must surely have thought things couldn't get any worse than when Pools were knocked out of the FA Cup by Northern Premier League Premier Division outfit Gainsborough Trinity in October, Featherstone's first game at the helm, only for their side to suffer an even more humbling defeat on Saturday.
While Saturday's game will long be remembered as one of the lowest points in the club's history, all Featherstone's side can do now is do their best to ensure it doesn't derail their impressive recent progress in the National League.
Although Pools missed out on the chance to climb into the top seven for the first time since September following defeat at the hands of a resurgent Yeovil earlier this month, a run of seven matches unbeaten had seen Featherstone's side reenergise their faltering play-off push.
While it's true that both seventh placed Southend, who are two points clear with two games in hand, as well as Scunthorpe, who are sixth and have already opened up a seven-point gap, have the advantage at this stage, Pools have given themselves a fighting chance of sneaking into the play-offs ahead of the second half of the season.
Having worked so hard to play themselves back into contention, however, Pools can ill-afford too many more slip-ups if they're to retain any serious chance of challenging for a coveted place in the top seven.
For Featherstone, too, the next few months have the potential to prove pivotal; having been appointed permanent Pools boss until the end of the season, the 37-year-old will be doing all he can to convince chairman Raj Singh, notorious for his lack of patience when it comes to hiring and firing managers, that he is the right man to lead the team in the longer term ahead of an ominously-titled "review of performance" set to take place this summer.
With all that in mind, Sunday's trip to strugglers Braintree, who are just a point above the National League relegation zone, feels particularly significant.
Three points in Essex will allow Pools to begin to put the weekend's FA Trophy debacle behind them ahead of difficult games against Scunthorpe, one of their direct rivals for a National League play-off place, and league leaders Rochdale.
Defeat, however, and Pools risk slipping back into the chasing pack, while pressure will begin to mount on Featherstone following a succession of bad results since he was named permanent boss.
Of course, Featherstone has form for inspiring a response in the wake of a shock cup exit; Pools went seven games unbeaten following their FA Cup defeat at the hands of Gainsborough in October.
In a bid to do something similar again, therefore, the new Pools boss has revealed that his players and staff held a team meeting on Monday.
Although a meeting had already been scheduled as Pools approach the halfway point of the campaign, Featherstone told The Red Radio his side were warned that the levels of performance that left him incandescent in the FA Trophy would not be accepted moving forward.
"On Monday, we had a meeting as a staff before then having a meeting with the players," he said.
"We were always going to have the meeting anyway, I wanted to get inside the lads' heads and see what they want to achieve in the second half of the season.
"After Saturday, we'll be halfway through the season; it's something you'd probably do at the start of the season but, obviously, I didn't have that luxury.
"We've decided what we want to do at the back end of the season, I wanted to know what the lads wanted to do and we've come together to reach a common goal.
"Before we could start that part of the meeting, we had to address Saturday.
"Physically, the mentality and the performance wasn't good enough and we won't accept that moving forward.
"I think the lads have agreed, they've said that's fair and we've all agreed that we'll do everything we can now to focus on the league and push us to where we want to be."