MARK Tinkler believes Saturday's last-gasp win at Blackpool will prove a turning point in Hartlepool United's season.

Pool have stuttered into gear this campaign and Saturday's victory was only their second of the season.

But Tinkler, back in the side after injury, can see that things are coming together.

"We battled hard in the first-half and worked our socks off. Everyone played their part,'' he said.

"There's a big squad here and a lot of good players at the club. We work hard in training and work hard in the game.

"To be honest, I thought things were going to go against us again when their goal went in, but we showed good character to come back and score two late on like we did.

"The way their goal came about, you tend to think 'here we go again' and it would be easy for heads to go down, but we are not like that.

"We fought back and got the goals. Sweens (Sweeney) scored a good one, at the near post and Icy's (Istead) came off his backside, I think, but who cares?''

Tinkler added: "Over the last six seasons or so we have showed how many good characters we have at the club and it has come through again.

"Everyone wants to help each other through situations and it showed. We know the start to the season hasn't been exactly what we wanted, but it's only early days and there are still a hell of a lot of points to play for.

"There's no reason why we can't be up there fighting at the top of the table again. We've done it before.

"We can look at this result as a real turning point, something to build on and use as a start. We would take any win, but I thought we deserved this one, especially the way we played in the second-half.''

He added: "I thought the defence was superb, they did everything that was asked and we had plenty of cover when needed.

"They knew exactly what they were doing and stood up strong. I think they had a couple of shots from long range, but that was about it.

"There was no one-on-ones or threats like that, which is exactly what you want.''

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