IT was, as Martin Scott jokingly indicated, a right kick in the unmentionables for his players.

Twenty minutes after securing his fifth away win of the season, Scott was beaming as he told of how much it meant to his squad.

"The players in the dressing room are absolutely delighted with the win. They've had to work hard for it and the win puts us into the top ten which is important,'' said Scott.

"Sorry, you're 13th,'' came one contradictory Yorkshire voice in the press conference.

"Cheers for that!'' Scott joked back. "The players will be bloody gutted - I'm not going back in there now and telling them that! I was on a high until you mentioned that.

"It's amazing what three points can't do for you . . . ''

At least Scott could enjoy a laugh and a joke this time out.

Seven days previous at Gillingham, he cut a studious figure as he tried to comprehend how his team missed the chance to beat a poor team who went on to lose 5-0 in their next game.

That this victory at Bradford, courtesy of a Mark Tinkler header, failed to push Pool into the top ten says everything about the nature of the division this season.

Defeat and it's time to look over your shoulder, win and talk is of the play-offs. League One is consistently inconsistent.

Southend and Scunthorpe have lost their last three games and have spent all season in the leading places. Doncaster have sprung up from bottom to ninth, Colchester are seventh after six successive wins, Nottingham Forest have struggled to adapt to this level yet are tenth.

Pool have now won five times away from Victoria Park and last season it took until mid-February to reach that mark.

After Saturday's FA Cup tie with Tamworth, Pool meet Colchester and Bournemouth at Victoria Park. Win those two and never mind the top ten, the players will be gutted if they aren't in the top six.

Yet the team with the fourth best away record in the division also has the third worst home CV.

It was Pool's third 1-0 away win - Doncaster and Bristol City the others - and it was probably their most polished win of the season to boot.

At both Doncaster and Bristol, Pool took the lead and a bout of nail biting followed as keeper Dimi Konstantopoulos made a number of top notch stops to secure the points.

This time out and Konstantopoulos had a relatively quiet day. Pool controlled the first-half and, after defending well in the first 20-odd minutes after the break, saw out the final stages with some degree of comfort.

"I've think we played better this week than last, yet created more chances last week,'' said Scott. "But that's how close games have been this season and that's how close this division is.

"We could have had four points from our last two games - we didn't and then go into the third game looking at potentially, what could have been, three defeats.

Debutant Dean McDonald and recalled Chris Llewellyn were outstanding up front as they pulled the Bradford back line apart with their running.

Perhaps centre-backs David Wetherall and Mark Bower would have enjoyed an easy bush tucker trial if Pool had the option to hit long towards Jon Daly.

The pair love nothing more than an mid-air battle, but they handled McDonald and Llewellyn with as much gusto as Jilly Goodwen and Carol Thatcher devour witcchettygrubs

It was hard to tell that the pair hadn't played up front together before. In fact, neither had played up front for Pool.

The last time Llewellyn was this impressive was when he created five goals for Wrexham against Pool at Victoria Park last season.

McDonald - surely the first Pool player ever to wear tights during a game - caused problems aplenty with his footwork and movement, Llewellyn likewise as he ran the channels and demanded the ball to his feet.

Right from the off, the pair started how they meant to continue with their link-up play with the midfield.

It was in contrast to their start at Gillingham. "You can never win a game in the opening minutes, but you can certainly lose it and we lost last week's game after nine minutes.

"But these players take things on board and learned from last week and started bright.

"We made changes and we decided to change the strikers because we are not scoring goals. They didn't score this time, but the understanding was there and they linked up well together.

"I think Dean brings something different to the team. We all know what Adam Boyd and Joel Porter can do, the unpredictability of what might happen and he has brought that to the team.

"The reason we did better was that we turned their defenders and had better quality from back to front and the movement was first-class against good defenders.

"We felt that our strikers could get in and around them and we had to change our play because Jon has been our main striker this year.

"We've been criticised at times for being a long ball team, but we aren't a long ball team.

"We like to play football, but with Jon up there we can hit diagonal balls into him. This week we had to change it because we had players who are happier with the ball into feet.''

The only goal came when a shot from McDonald flew wide of the mark and referee Neil Swarbrick awarded Pool a right wing corner.

Ritchie Humphreys, who was at his energetic and fluent best on the left wing, swung it over high and deep and right on Tinkler's head who wasn't going to miss from close range.

It's credit to Humphreys and the rest of the midfield that they were so effective in the absence of this season's main creator Tommy Butler.

Minutes later came Pool's only scare as Dean Windass stood goalside of John Brackstone and smashed an angled volley across and beyond Konstantopoulos. The offside flag stopped his joy.

And Windass didn't get much joy from Micky Nelson and Neill Collins throughout as Pool won at Valley Parade for the second season in a row.

Result: Bradford City 0 Hartlepool United 1.