Just how long can this go on for Hartlepool United?

The club, seemingly geared for promotion, look further away from the Football League than ever.

Craig Harrison suffered another afternoon of anguish as Pools flattered to deceive, not for the first.

Pools controlled the game at the Crabble Athletic Ground like a 'big club' might when visiting a 'minnow' with ambitions of greater glory.

However, they could not carry out the tasks that teams go out on the field to do - put the ball in the opposition net and keep it out of their own.

In those two regards, they looked novices and the fans at full-time let them know just what they thought.

Harrison said: "If we are going to be brutally honest, we've made poor decisions in both boxes.

"In the middle bit of the field, we've done great, we've passed the ball, we've kept the ball, we've got ourselves in the final third positions.

"We've had three or four similar opportunities to how their first goal came about and we've not capitalised.

"We've made bad decisions in our box but it doesn't help when we are fighting an uphill battle after a few minutes (when they conceded the first goal).

"But at 2-0 (at half-time) we felt we had enough in the locker to go and get the next goal, if we'd have done that we were back in the game.

"We've pinned them back but that's at 2-0, we have to do that from the first whistle."

Supporters are losing hope and patience, that's assuming they haven't already, and Harrison was quick to heap praise on the fans, with 116 making it all the way to the far south-east corner of our land in bitterly-cold temperatures on Saturday.

"Every single week they are absolutely fantastic, they are top drawer," said the manager.

"They don't deserve that, they deserve a better performance, a better result.

"It is up to us now to make sure that we put that right next Saturday and the following Saturday.

"We have to get a run of wins together, we've got to.

"They come here in their droves and they didn't deserve that.

"As a group we've got to do better we must make sure that never happens again."

Harrison has a considerable amount of work to do, on and off the park, including some serious thoughts on an appeal over the late red card for Nicky Deverdics.

The full-back was sent off less than two minutes from time on his old stamping ground after felling his old team-mate and friend, Connor Essam.

He stuck out an arm and down went the defender - it was untidy but certainly wasn't the elbow referee Richard Hulme indicated as he invited the 30-year-old to leave the field.

It was a measure of how the official may have been awry that the 1,000 home fans gave Deverdics warm applause as he exited.

"I thought it was going to be a free-kick to us," said Harrison. "I've only seen it in real time from 65 yards, but I don't think it's a sending off.

"It looked like Devs had got his body between the man and the ball and their lad has come through him.

"That was my assessment of it.

"At no point did I think a): it was going to be anything but a free-kick to us and b). there was going to be a red card coming out of it."

On the subject of seeing red, the defender inside the 40-year-old manager will have been seething when his team watched Dover knock the ball around on the left side before Mitch Pinnock has beaten Scott Loach at his near post.

Loach made amends with a good save from Manny Parry's header and watched a Ryan Bird shot go just wide.

However, Pinnock doubled the lead when he tapped in after Anthony Jeffrey had left Louis Laing in a tangle.

That was the 25th minute and for almost the next hour you'd have been hard pressed to work out who the home team was.

Pools controlled play, had all the ball, but could fashion very little.

There were numerous corners, Rhys Oates had a shot blocked, keeper Mitch Walker saved from Liam Donnelly and sub Tomi Adeloye, while Jack Munns failed to connect when in a good position.

Good positions would come and go though Bird would show that Dover knew what to do in those areas, heading in 11 minutes from the end after heading in sub Kadell Daniels' hanging cross.

Shortly after Deverdics had seen red, Bird added his second, Pools not bothering to pick him up at a corner. Typical of the day really.