Hartlepool United suffered their first National League defeat of the season at Sutton United on Saturday. The Pools went into the game looking to build on the momentum they had picked up from claiming maximum points from an opening day home win against Barrow and last weekend's long trip to Aldershot Town - but they failed to reach the heights as they suffered their first competitive defeat of the season.
Two goals in the space of six first-half minutes from home duo Temi Babalola and Emmanuel Osadebe put The U's in control of the contest - although Pools did get themselves back in the game before half-time when Corey McKeown's persistence allowed the former Spennymoor Town winger to score for the second consecutive game.
Despite some late pressure, Lee Clark's men were unable to find an equaliser as their perfect record for the season disappeared in South London. Captain Hunter described the performance as 'a big disappointment' and urged his teammates to 'dust themselves down' and focus on improving in Friday night's home clash with Eastleigh.
League standing: 8th in National League, 6 pts, 2W-0D-1L from 3 games, recent form WLW.
He told BBC Tees Sport: 'I think we had a lot of momentum from the first two games and we didn't use that at all today. Not enough quality in either box and a scrappy game. We didn't show what we are about today and that's disappointing. It was just a lack of quality. The effort is always going to be there from this group because it's a really good group. Today, we didn't have nowhere near enough quality, we didn't have forward momentum, we didn't defend well enough, we didn't have control of the game so there are a lot of things we can do better than we did today.
'Goals this season: 5 scored, 4 conceded (+1 goal difference).
'Title race: 3 points behind leaders Southend.
'**We knew, we were prepared for that [the long throw-in that led to Osadebe's goal] this week so that's a big disappointment. We just have to dust ourselves down and really improve next Friday because the level we want to be at this season, that wasn't anywhere near it.'
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