YOU can change the manager and the players, but some things remain the same with Hartlepool United: they are as inconsistent as ever and they will never get the better of Graham Westley.

Seven days earlier they impressed their new boss Dave Jones, giving an accomplished performance in beating Stevenage.

The Northern Echo:

They went to Newport looking to increase the 11-point gap between themselves and the Football League’s bottom team only to be outbattled and outmuscled from start to finish.

And it means that in eight meetings against a side managed by the egocentric Westley, Pools have one draw and seven successive defeats.

They can’t handle the direct approach his sides adopt, the long ball, physical attack is too much. Weak mentally, second-best physically, Pools were bullied, conceding three times from corners.

On a pitch Jones was shocked by - “a joke, it shouldn’t be allowed in the Football League, it’s scandalous’’, the Exiles don’t try and play football.

Newcastle Falcons struggled to play on that surface against Newport-Gwent Dragons yesterday afternoon and the game was abandonded with less than 20 minutes to go - that's how bad it was after a bit more rain.

Pools couldn’t get their heads around the whole picture.

Jones, in two games, has seen the good and bad, and he will have learned more from the bad as he did from the good.

At least they won’t play on a paddy field like that again, nor against a team like that.

“We knew everything that Newport were going to do. We didn’t deal with set-plays like we should have and we didn’t cope with it,’’ reflected Jones. “They didn’t surprise me in how they played, there’s no point in hammering the players as they are young lads trying to learn their trade.

“They have to learn quickly at times.

“Newport got on with it and dealt with it better than we did, but as team and a group of people we have to learn to adapt to different situations, be it a pitch like that, astroturf, long grass or short grass.

“We weren’t surprised by anything, but we needed to deal with it better than we did. There’s no complaints about what we were up against, other teams have to come here and adapt.’’

And while Westley and his side played their games from days of old off the pitch – cold water in the visiting dressing room, and no electicity sockets working – on the pitch they did the same.

Westley’s teams don’t bother with open play. They look for free-kicks, corners and throw ins.

Sid Nelson sounds like a footballer with Brylcreemed hair who would smoke Woodbines at half-time. How his arms must have ached from the amount of long range throw-ins he took.

From their second corner, the Exiles took the lead. Craig Reid floated it to the six-yard box and Ryan Bird clambered above Liam Donnelly to head in from close range.

Bird scored some important goals for Pools while on loan two season’s ago, but his career has stalled since.

The second was embarrassing from Pools’ perspective as a corner was twice headed on before Aaron Williams nodded in from a yard out.

Could goalkeeper Adam Bartlett have done better for both goals? He should have come off his line and challenged for the ball at least.

And for the third, as Bennett raced onto a loose ball to drill in, was his positioning suspect?

It wasn’t until injury time, the game long gone, before Pools created a worthwhile attack, as Padraig Amond turned in from close range for his tenth of the season.

Jones is fast learning what Pools are all about: “I saw certain traits here that the club has had for a while, play well one week, not the next. We were outstanding last week, today we weren’t and sometimes you get that with young players in the side.

“They will all be good players, but are learning in division against bigger and stronger players. We work on everything and training had gone well.

“But how do you replicate it ? Apart from going to the local farm and trying to play football on the fields there.

“How do you replicate penalties? You can’t get 30,000 fans behind the goal.

“With that out there… it’s shocking. I can take the bits and pieces that go with it, the electricity, the cold water, I felt they went out years ago.

“Things should be better than that, but each to their own.’’