Hartlepool United training 'tough' ahead of Dover Athletic trip as manager Dave Challinor discusses preparation

Pools’ busy schedule of three games in seven days was somewhat disrupted when Tuesday night’s match at Halifax was postponed due to adverse weather conditions.

But Challinor’s side have continued to go about their business as usual in preparation for this weekend’s 660-mile round trip to the Crabble Athletic Ground.

Dover currently sit 22nd in the National League table and have won just three matches all season in the fifth tier.

“The use the week as you need to,” Challinor said. “For us, it allows us to work on different things going into a different opposition and there are potential tweaks to be made.

"We’ve got a bit of time to work on that. The postponement on Tuesday didn’t change an awful lot, we’d usually train on the Wednesday, have Thursday off and train on the way down on the Friday so we’ve done the same again.”

Pools’ session on Wednesday would usually be something of a recovery session after a Tuesday night game. But with no midweek match, Challinor made sure the intensity of the session helped the players hit the levels required from them.

“We did a tough session on Wednesday which was physically tough because we didn’t play a game,” he added.

“We felt it was enough to put us in good stead going into Dover to win the game on Saturday.”

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