Keith Curle reacts to 'point gained' for Hartlepool United against 10-man Sutton United

It was a first half which had it all at the Suit Direct Stadium as Hartlepool almost found themselves behind in the first minute when Alistair Smith found himself unmarked before hitting the post.

But Sutton wouldn’t have long to wait to take the lead as David Ajiboye powered in from Sam Hart’s cross before Lee Angol doubled the U’s’ advantage on the half-hour mark.

Angol met a clever through ball to beat the offside line and deftly lift the ball over the advancing Jakub Stolarcyzk with Hartlepool’s game plan in tatters.

But Curle’s side were handed a lifeline when U’s captain Craig Eastmond was shown two yellow cards in the space of four minutes as Matt Gray’s side were reduced to 10 men.

And Hartlepool wasted little time in making their extra man count as Dan Kemp curled an exquisite free kick beyond Jack Rose before Dan Dodds would, perhaps, go one better with a wonderful left-footed strike in first half stoppage time.

Despite their man advantage, however, Pools were unable to find a winner in the second half but Curle believes it was a point gained for his side in the end.

“There's a little bit of frustration and a little bit of annoyance that we didn’t create enough chances against the 10 men. But at 2-0 down, to come back to 2-2 it’s a point gained,” said Curle.

“We didn’t start the game well. I said to the players before the game, are we going to be brave enough to play? Secondly are we clever enough to understand where and when?

“We didn’t win enough first contacts in the first 20 minutes. This is in no way meant to be disrespectful but they are a physical team, they get the numbers right, they’re competitive. We didn’t have that.

“We weren’t competitive or aggressive enough in the first instances of the game.”

He added: “I’m disappointed when we concede goals that I think are easy goals to concede. We looked like a team that hadn’t played together.

“But in adversity is when you learn more about people. The pleasing thing is the players stuck together.”