Huddersfield Town 2, Hartlepool 1

Aug 29 2005 By Mel Booth, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

TOWN oozed two of the rich qualities which could well make them hot promotion contenders this season.

Firstly, an irresistible passing ability to take the game by the scruff of the neck and command with goals from Pawel Abbott and Danny Schofield.

Then, when the going got tough after Adam Boyd's cracking strike to put Hartlepool right back in it, Town displayed bags of character to ride the storm and win.

It was compelling stuff and richly entertaining as the unbeaten Galpharm record of 2005 was preserved for defence against Scunthorpe on Friday.

Glanford Park manager Brian Laws, who watched from the directors' box, must have been in a cold sweat at half time.

He had seen Town tear last season's beaten play-off finalists to pieces with slick movement, precision passing and a warming desire to attack at will.

Perhaps the only fault was that Town didn't kill off the contest completely after Abbott's 13th-minute strike from Andy Holdsworth's raking pass and Schofield's clever finish in a melee barely five minutes later.

They created enough chances in an embarrassingly one-sided half to have run away with it but, credit to the visitors, they hit back strongly after the break.

That's when Town needed to dig in - and they weren't found wanting.

Tom and Nathan Clarke were splendid at the back, communicating well and limiting two decent strikers in Ritchie Humphreys and Michael Proctor to very few reasonable chances.

It helped that Holdsworth and Danny Adams were in fine fettle, especially the former, whose intuitive passing going forward brought the best out of Chris Brandon.