Boyd and Brown to front Pools’ attack on play-offs (From The Northern Echo)

Boyd and Brown to front Pools’ attack on play-offs

11:01am Saturday 21st November 2009

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ADAM Boyd is relishing the chance to forge a front-line partership with James Brown.

Last week’s win over Orient was Hartlepool United’s fifth game without loss in League One.

And it came thanks to Boyd’s 82nd minute finish in a game when he and Brown started up front together for the first time this season.

Brown and Boyd were expected to form Chris Turner’s first-choice pairing this season, but have had to wait for their chance to work together.

Denis Behan had started every league game this season until being rested last week.

Turner will stick with the same starting XI for this afternoon’s trip to Huddersfield Town.

“The reason why we haven’t played much together is down to Denis playing so well from the start,’’ reflected Boyd.

“He’s maybe been a bit tired because of the amount of games he’s played, everyone needs to remember that.

“I’m sure with a rest he will be back to his best.

“I needed games and now I’ve got two in two in the league, playing games and scoring goals brings confidence.

I know it’s our No 1 job to score and when you don’t you take it personally. It’s always nice to do it.’’ “I enjoyed playing alongside Browny, hopefully his fitness will come soon - he was a bit tired, but I thought he was excellent. He did well and the chances he had came from his own hard work.’’ Pools sit four points and three places behind sixthplaced Huddersfield and Turner spoke of the importance of both this trip and Tuesday’s Victoria Park encounter with Southampton.

Lee Clark’s side has rattled up 20 goals in their last four home games and Boyd added: “Huddersfield had a good win over Wycombe, but a lot of teams in this division are similar and hopefully they have all their goals out of the way now!

“We are in a good position, yet with our home form we are under-achieving.

Wycombe, Brentford, Bristol Rovers – take a few more points from those and we are sixth.

“We have done alright so far and we are a bit of a dark horse. Finishing just above relegation last season meant no-one fancied us, the only pressure comes from ourselves and our fans.

“I think even from the board’s side, they will be happy to improve and the same with the manager. We want to push on and keep going.’’ Pools have enjoyed a promising start to the season, despite only occasionally hitting top gear. A summer of big change at Victoria Park has changed the outlook and mentality from last season and Boyd, one of Turner’s close season recruits, has played a big part.

“Look at last week’s game, we could have won 3-0 and they couldn’t have grumbled,’’ he said.

“The home games I’ve already mentioned that we could have won, hopefully someone is in for a pasting soon.

“It’s the sign of a good team to keep going to the end and we do that. We’ve not lacked any work ethic this season and you could see they got tired in the second half, we didn’t. Their goalkeeper pulled off a great save from Andy (Monkhouse) , I had a shot blocked that should have gone in - we had plenty of chances.

“I suppose I had to score against Orient didn’t I? It was similar to the Kettering game in that we had all the possession and all the chances without taking any – it felt like one of those days again.’’ “It was nice to get a win, never mind me scoring, last week was disappointing, so it’s nice to get back to winning.

“We are ninth in the table yet we are probably underachieving when you look at our results. We’ve two hard games coming up so if we can get something from those then who knows.

“We had to show patience out there, but it doesn’t feel that way when you are on the pitch.

“But we kept going to the end, we did last week as well to try and get in and behind them, and it worked for us.’’

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