Home form key for Hartlepool United after strong display against Maidenhead United

Hartlepool eased to a 3-1 success over Maidenhead at the Suit Direct Stadium to make it six points from six to bounce back from their opening day defeat at Barnet.

Pools controlled things for large parts of the game and found their breakthrough when Anthony Mancini tapped in from close range after Chris Wreh’s strike had fallen kindly his way.

Mancini’s first goal in blue and white was shortly followed by Charlie Seaman scoring his first goal for the club with a stunning strike into the top corner.

The home side had opportunities to add a third but had to wait until five minutes from time when David Ferguson got in on the act as he followed up from Emmanuel Dieseruvwe’s effort which came back off the bar to power home.

John Askey was unable to claim a first clean sheet as Pools boss, however, after Casey Petit grabbed a late consolation for the visitors, but it has been a positive start back to National League life at the Suit Direct Stadium with maximum points from their first two home games.

"It was really important after what happened on the opening day of the season, with two home games, to get points on the board,” first team coach Sweeney said.

"To get maximum points out of the two has put us in good stead.

"At the start of the season you’re looking to get two points per game and we’re on that track. We’d like to have performed better at Barnet but our home form is going to be really important to us.

"At the start of the season you’ve got 23 home games; if you win all of your home games you’re more or less where you need to be in terms of the points for the season, regardless of what happens away from home.

"Then if you’re not bad away from home you put yourself in the realms of getting out of the division. So the home form is going to be absolutely crucial.

"We’re two games in and we’re two out of two with maximum points. There’s a lot more games to go and I think we’ll have even tougher tests coming, but we’ve got to start by giving ourselves the best possible chance to win football games and I thought, especially in the second half, we did that.”

And it was that second 45 minutes which really saw Hartlepool turn the screw as they were rewarded for a positive approach with Sweeney particularly pleased by the mentality of the players not to grow frustrated after a first half which saw them go in level.

“There’s never easy games, but that first half could have turned into massive frustration in the second half,” said Sweeney.

“We’re going to have games where it’s not going to go our way, but we’ve got to find a way of winning games and we found that way.

“At times in the second half we made it look relatively comfortable, it’s just disappointing at the end we took a little bit of the gloss off it.”