CRAIG Harrison has praised the impact Louis Laing has had on his Hartlepool United side.

After an uneasy start to his Pools career, the centre-half has impressed at the heart of Pools’ mean back four.

He helped Pools keep a clean sheet in winning at Torquay last Saturday and is now an automatic pick for Harrison.

Laing’s poor start to the season was highlighted in the defeat at Maidenhead when he gifted the home side a second goal.

He then suffered an injury and spent time on the sidelines.

But since his return, he has started to show the sort of form which made him a prospect at Sunderland.

And Harrison admitted: "I was a defender, I know how the mind works, I know what goes on, I had sticky patches in my career.

"I think it's a mental challenge.

"In an interview he was quite open with his answers, which is good, because I think you'd have had a problem if you had a deluded player.

"He knows, to his standards, he wasn't great and he had to step up.

"We've been doing a bit with him on the training pitch, we try to do individual stuff with all the players on a weekly basis.

"Competition for places might have helped, Ledger has come in and been brilliant, Liam’s (Donnelly) been great.’’

He added: "In the early part of the season we had Laingy, Scotty (Harrison) and Liam and that was it and we brought competition.

"He's got in because Keith (Watson) has got injured and I think the realisation has been that he's had to grasp the opportunity when it's come his way.’’

And Harrison wants to see the 24-year-old imposed himself even more on the opposition.

"He's got the stature, but I'd like him to have a bit more nastiness about him,’’ said the manager.

"It's not easy because he's a nice guy, the sort who'd apologise after smashing you!

"You can't change a person's character, but we're trying to coax him into having a bit of an edge.

"We're trying to get into him a bit more before matches.

"All players are different in their match preparations. Some sit quietly with their headphones on, some are like 'just leave me alone' and some need goading.

"Getting to know Louis he falls into the last category - he needs winding up to let him know he's in for a battle.

"We as the staff try to do that, one day he might turn around and knock one of us out!

"On the flip side you must give credit to him, it shows he is of a strong mentality, it's never easy coming back after a bad start, but he has and he's been brilliant for us."