Ten men of Woking see off Hartlepool to break two-game losing streak

 Woking 3 Hartlepool United 0 

Vanarama National League Saturday 12^th December 2020

Woking returned back to winning ways after a comfortable victory over Hartlepool at the Laithwaite Community Stadium on Saturday.

Two goals inside the opening sixteen minutes from Matt Jarvis and Jack Cook set the pattern for the afternoon with the Cards adding a third in the second half through Slavi Spasov. Despite having to spend the last twenty minutes with ten men when Max Kretzschmar was shown a straight red card, Woking never looked troubled.

The Cards were out of the traps quickly and opened the scoring in just the second minute when poor Hartlepool defending allowed Jarvis to fire home after the visitors failed to clear their lines.

In the 17^th minute Woking doubled their advantage following a corner from Charlie Cooper, the visitors failed once again to clear the danger with the ball falling to Cook who hooked the ball into the net.

Woking went close in an opening half dominated by the hosts when Ben Dempsey’s volley from 20 yards out was a whisker away.

The monkey hangers had to wait to virtually the last kick of the half to test Cards keeper Craig Ross.  A ball into the box was deflected of the legs of Saul Shotton, but Ross was alert to kick the ball away.

The second half started in the same vein as the first with Woking created the better chances. After 58 minutes the Cards put the game out of the reach of Hartlepool after a free-flowing move from the home side was finished off by Spasov.

Hartlepool were given a chance to get back into the game in the 72^nd minute when Kretzschmar was shown a straight red card for a foul. At the time this seemed extremely harsh, with everybody in the crowd totally baffled by the decision from referee Scott Tallis. Kretzschmar appeared to leave a leg dangling, but at worse this should have only warranted a yellow card at most. Cards gaffer Alan Dowson showed his frustration at the decision and was duly shown a yellow card.

Despite the Cards being down to ten men, Hartlepool failed to capitalise on this. Dowson put on two academy players late in the game in the shape of Jack Skinner and Jayden Wareham to give them some playing time.

Even with seven minutes of additional time, Woking never looked in trouble in a day that saw a healthy crowd back at the Laithwaite, and a day to forgot for Hartlepool.

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