FIFTEEN minutes of defending as plastic as the fabricated club who formed the opposition and Hartlepool United's day was ruined.

Taking the lead against the Milton Keynes Dons at the most unlikely excuse for a football ground you will find, Pool conceded a soft equaliser then collapsed.

Neale Cooper couldn't believe it - "I'm shellshocked" - because he'd never witnessed a capitulation like this before.

Blackpool last season maybe, but that was a bad performance from start to finish. This one started well and in the first-half Pool were facing the worst team they had played in a long time.

By the end, it was the worst 45 minutes of defending Pool had displayed in even longer.

Wimbledon, MK Dons, or whatever they wish to be known as had not scored four times in a League game since April 2003.

Since then they have won ten games in 56 attempts as the club was ripped apart and moved up the M1 to a purpose-built town.

It should have been a second big win for Pool in as many League games following the 4-1 thumping of Torquay.

But, away from home, Pool can't cut it this season, and 12 goals conceded is the second biggest in the country. Last season they won ten times on the road and no-one managed more.

To make it worse, Pool had their first player sent-off in the Football League for almost two years when Antony Sweeney was red carded in the second period.

Sweeney faces a three-game ban following a petty clash with Izale McLeod, who acted like a pansy after he went head to head with the Pool midfielder.

Cooper admitted: "We can't use Tuesday's game and journey home as an excuse, it was just down to bad defending.

"We came out early for the second half again and we still conceded. OK, it was a wonder strike, but we backed off and backed off again. You can't defend like that.

"Tinks showed him across then Nelse ran the other way instead of covering - he should have been there.

"Then Westy, who is one of the best tacklers I know, jumps in on the lad in the box. Why did he dive?

"All right, the lad has made a meal of it, but players do that, and we are three-one behind.''

He added: "It was poor, poor defending. They scored four times, but what other chances did they create? Did they really rip us apart? Their first goal came from our corner.

"Martin Woods put the ball over, they broke out, a good cross, the lad heads the ball, it's going across goal, hits Jim's hand and goes in the net.

"From being on top, we are level and it was downhill all the way.

"I'm shellshocked. You can't score two goals away from home and not come away with anything.

"We kept trying to play the game, but it was game over after an hour."

Williams could have put Pool in front early on, but poked wide from six yards after being pulled all over by Steve Palmer.

The defender must think it's Christmas when he faces Pool as he was part of the QPR side that twice beat Pool 4-1 last season.

Micky Nelson intercepted a pass on the edge of his area, raced forward 70 yards with the ball a la Alan Hansen and swept a pass out to Williams. His low cross - curled into the corridor of uncertainty - was turned in by Adam Boyd.

It could have been two soon after and the misses proved costly because the home side motored up the other end and levelled.

First Williams headed back across goal and, with Boyd ready to pounce, the ball was cleared.

As the ball was chipped back into the area, a classy volley on the turn by Williams was goalbound before beanpole keeper Scott Bevan tipped over.

And when Gareth Edds swung over a cross to the far post from the right, Izale McLeod headed across goal and the ball scrambled over the line.

Cooper, after a couple of indifferent second-half performances this season, has started kicking his team out of the dressing room a few minutes early in a bid to keep them fresh.

He will have felt like kicking them up the backside after the way they restarted this one.

After 40 seconds they were 1-10 down. Small ran across and at the retreating defence, and as they stood off Small hit a big shot which crashed in off the bar.

It wasn't long before Chris Westwood lunged in two-footed on McLeod and he went down. Former Middlesbrough trainee Gary Smith thumped the penalty past Provett.

If that wasn't bad enough, a cross from the right was nodded on and McLeod nipped in front of Westwood to make it four.

Boyd's classy finish was Pool's second of the day, but there was never any danger of it being any closer.

In the National Hockey Stadium, the home fans are nothing like a football crowd.

Certainly not the hardened type you get across the land - they are more the breed who would go to watch, well, hockey.

The car load who have followed Wimbledon's demise and drive up the M1 every week will have been there.

The rest - locals no doubt - are more like the Fast Show character who likes a day out at "the soccer match".

The crowd even claps itself when they sing! It's surreal.

But it's a social thing in Milton Keynes and you fully expect the picnic baskets and champagne to come out with the sunshine.

Champagne football for Pool it certainly wasn't; not even up to a glass of Lambrini.

Result: MK Dons 4 Hartlepool United 2.

Read more about Hartlepool here.