Hartlepool United analysis: Refereeing was AWFUL but to focus on that tells only half the story for Pools

That’s a journalistic principle drilled into you when you’re cutting your teeth making teas and running errands as a cub reporter at any reputable newsroom - it’s a shame I haven’t always followed that golden rule!

Maybe someone should share this information to referees making their way in the game. Maybe they do tell them to aide the narrative of a game by getting things right and being decisive, but it’s obviously not a message that’s got as far as York whistler Gareth Rhodes.

Rhodes spoiled the game as a spectacle with his bizarre calls and inexplicable decisions, so much so it had both sets of players, fans and coaching staff pulling their hair out by the final whistle.

Players were taking throw ins with their feet over the line, throw ins became free-kicks, fair tackles were given yellows - and that’s just scratching the surface of Rhodes and his fellow officials’ show at the Super 6 Stadium at the weekend.

It was exasperating to watch - I can only imagine what it must have been like to play in.

You could see the veins bulging out of Ryan Donaldson’s head from the back of the The East Durham College Neale Cooper Stand with one or two of Rhodes’ calls.

While he had a massive impact on the game, to analyse only the official’s performance is to only tell half the story.

And while awful, Rhodes’ show would have been inconsequential had Pools defended better and scored more goals. It’s that simple.

Craig Hignett’s men were taught a bit of a National League lesson in the opening 45 - a big, strong decent side beats a smaller, less physical side nine times out of 10.

That’s the beauty of the National League, if you want to call it that, it’s not rocket science. Teams who play direct football and have big players front to back tend to get some traction in the

fifth tier, that success rate of that approach lessons the further up the Football League food chain you go.

A long ball style with big men and pace running off is frowned upon in the cosmopolitan quarters of the upper echelons of English football, and rightly so given the quality of player and cash spent, but down here it’s still a tactic used by many and to great effect. Bromley are one of those sides, Pools are very definitely not.

Pools tried their best to play football, of course with the odd direct one to Nicke Kabamba, but for the most part kept it on the deck. They passed the opposition off the park, without really creating too much.

By contrast Bromley did not worry about all the flowery bits in between, they went from back to front as quick as they could and it paid dividends with two goals, both against the run of play to go in 2-0 up at half time.

The second goal, a quite brilliant Gazza-like Euro 96 strike, popped Pools’ bubble in many ways and only for three minutes in added time did the hosts look likely to take anything from the encounter.

Hignett called Pools “naive”, I’d say more inexperience told.

Defenders with a handful of games between them learned a lesson in the men’s game. And Luke James’ absence from the side, a massive pre-match blow, cannot be understated. While Niko Muir is an able deputy, a finisher and excellent link man, he does not have the workrate and nuisance factor James brings to the party.