Paul Hartley reacts to Hartlepool United's heavy defeat to Blackburn Rovers in the Carabao Cup

The Championship side eased into the second round with a 4-0 win over a below par Pools.

Scott Wharton opened the scoring just after the half-hour mark when he powered in Tyler Morton’s corner before Dilan Markandany was denied by the foot of the post just before half-time.

Pools barely threatened the Rovers defence in the opening 45 minutes and were given a mountain to climb just two minutes after the restart when the impressive Bradley Dack slid in Tayo Edun’s low cross.

And the home side added a third soon after when Tyrhys Dolan found space on the left and he was able to open his body and find the far corner.

Markanday grabbed a goal his performance deserved when he found the bottom corner from Dack’s clever lay off with Hartley admitting it was a difficult night for his side.

“It’s a learning curve. Playing against good players, if you make a mistake they’ll punish you,” said Hartley.

“We were beaten by the better team but the second half was disappointing, especially for about 25 minutes.

“We go in a goal down at half-time through a set play. I know we didn’t have much play ourselves, but I thought our shape was good and our organisation, we were difficult to break down and we said at half-time just to stay in the game at 1-0.

“Then we lose two quick goals. Two really soft goals. After that it was always going to be difficult and it was about just trying to keep the scoreline down a little bit.”

Hartley made seven changes to his starting XI with one eye on Saturday’s trip to Northampton Town in League Two.

“We had to freshen it up because we’ve got an important game on Saturday, but I expected a little bit better tonight,” he said.

“They had a difficult evening. When you’re playing against good players they'll punish you if you make mistakes and that’s certainly what happened to us.”