Pete Wild on Hartlepool United's free weekend and the gruelling impact of recent training sessions
Hartlepool United head coach Pete Wild believes a free weekend may not be the worst thing.
Pete Wild believes a free weekend may not be the worst thing for his Hartlepool United squad after a gruelling few weeks on the training ground.
On Saturday, Hartlepool United were on the wrong end of a seven-goal thriller at league leaders Boreham Wood. Matt Rush scored a second-half stoppage-time winner to settle a topsy-turvy 4-3 thriller with Pools. Danny Cashman opened the scoring for the hosts with a penalty in the 20th minute, and Boreham Wood took a two-goal advantage into the break after Tom White scored on the stroke of half time.
Maxim Kouogun cut the deficit in half two minutes after the restart, and it was all square after Cole Deeming opened his Hartlepool account five minutes later. Jamie Miley fired Hartlepool in front with a stunner from distance just before the hour and Zak Brunt drew the sides back level in the 87th minute before Rush fired in the emphatic winner in the second of six added minutes.
The defeat leaves Pools fourth bottom with 15 points from 16 league games ahead of a free weekend after they were dumped out of the FA Cup by Marine at the fourth qualifying round stage.
Reflecting on the break, Wild said: “I do think they'll need it because I think we've absolutely spiked their physical stuff and if we keep doing that, we're going to get injuries.
“So I think we could do with that and I know the physio and the sports science staff are hiding under the desk at the moment with the [physical] figures the players were producing. So, yeah, we could do with the break just to make sure that. I was just on the injury report this morning and the physio was just saying, lots of aches and pains.
“There is going to be. I've said to the players at the start of [last] week, I just need another seven days out of them. Give me everything you've got for seven days and we can come off the gas slightly, still get on the training ground and work and work where we need to be, but we can come off the gas slightly and sort of let these bodies recover a little bit from the spike in what we've asked them to do,” added Wild, ahead of the Boreham Wood fixture.
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