CRAIG HIGNETT, the Hartlepool United manager, has always insisted since his appointment that he never looked down the table.

At the time of his February arrival, Pools only had York and Dagenham below them. Now, there’s a clutch of sides underneath as Hignett has lifted the club to 17th in League Two.

A haul of 14 points from a possible 18 has made relegation improbable now.

And, amid a run of six games without defeat and four matches without conceding a goal, Hignett’s sights are set.

“We want to see how many games we can remain unbeaten, it’s what I’ve said to them – go six, seven, eight games. Same with clean sheets – why can’t we have five, six seven?’’ he mused after the Easter Monday win at Leyton Orient made him a serious contender for March manager of the month award.

“As a whole, as a team we defended well on Good Friday against Wimbledon, who hit a lot of long, diagonal balls into us and I’m looking at Rob Jones there thinking I could use him as he could snuff them out today.

“I enjoyed watching us defend as we did. Both centre-halves, Jacko and Batesy, have been brilliant again, but not just those two – Nicky Featherstone has been outstanding.

“Jake Carroll and Carl Magnay are playing out of their skin and Trevor Carson is the best keeper in the division.

“And we’ve a lot of young kids who are only going to get better. I’m delighted to be here and working with them.

“We had a couple of knocks last Friday, but you don’t feel them when they are winning. Everyone in there has a clean bill of health and I’ve given them until Thursday off.

Pools are back in training this morning after the manager rewarded his charges with two days off following the 2-0 Orient win.

He added: “I keep hitting targets earlier than I expect to and how many games have we left? I think we are safe now and with ten games left we know the challenge is not to give away the good work and keep it going.

”Four clean sheets in a row and we had to dig in at times, but as a whole, as an 11, I couldn’t fault them defensively.

“It’s fantastic as a group, the whole club and gives us a great lift.’’