HARTLEPOOL UNITED secured a dogged point in a goalless draw at home to Boreham Wood.

Pools were down to ten men for the last 20 minutes after centre-half Scott Harrison was red carded after a second yellow card.

And, while they were thankful to some wayward finishing from the promotion-chasing visitors, Pools dug out a point.

It was an improved performance on their last home game, a woeful home defeat to Ebbsfleet.

The Wood had the first chance when Kieran Murtagh skipped past Liam Donnelly, and his shot was saved by Scott Loach, before two chances for Bruno Andrade were blocked.

Pools’ first chance came when Lewis Hawkins fired across goal and Michael Woods failed to connect.

Woods then had a shot saved at the near post by keeper Grant Smith, and the follow up by Connor Newton was clipped against the post.

Harrison and Bruno Andrade tangled, with the visiting attacker going down and both were booked.

And Pools were down to ten men on 65 minutes, Harrison collecting a second yellow card after holding back Balanta.

Pools kept two players up front and substitute Devante Rodney played a fine ball across the face of goal which evaded all in the area.

Ricketts prodded wide of an empty net from close range for the visitors and on 88 minutes, they hit the post when Balanta picked his spot and curled a low shot across Loach.

In injury time, Donnelly blocked a shot from Dave Stephens on the line to keep the scoreline blank.

Bates said: “We have tried to put some belief in the players, there has been an improvement. But this is a point, in terms of performances it’s been good, but we only have one point from it. We start again on Monday and they only we to get more is to play with more pride, determination – all those buzz words.

“We take it game by game, I’m caretaker here and want as many points on the board as possible – win as many games as we can.

“We try to simplify things and have we made it clearer for them. Is it morale or togetherness – we have put two good shifts in against two good sides. We need to carry it on into next week.''