Owing to my location in the North East at present, I go to Hartlepool United home games. A benefit of this has been seeing a team more hapless than the ‘Orns at the moment! Seriously though, ‘Pools hosted Yeovil Town on Saturday which provided me with an opportunity to check out loan ranger, Rene Gilmartin.
As well as the big Irishman, the Glovers have Gavin Massey on loan at Huish Park from the Vic`. Former Goldenboys Billy Gibson and Dominic Blizzard are both also on the books with Terry Skiverton`s side.
So, to Gilmartin…
Handling: Fairly solid on the whole. Hartlepool slung a couple of deep crosses into the Yeovil penalty area early on which Gilmartin dealt with confidently and calmly, taking the crosses in first-time.
Command of area: Despite making his debut for the Somerset-based club and only making his move to the South West a couple of days ago, Gilmartin had clearly settled in and his confidence showed in the collection of crosses. His defence was solid and well-organized and ‘Reg` played his part in that.
There were two slight slips from corners where he flapped slightly at crosses, but still got the ball away sufficiently to remove the danger.
Distribution: Probably the biggest strength of Gilmartin`s game, and bar one slip he excelled here. Yeovil were very happy to sit back and soak up the pressure having got their goal and Gilmartin played his part in relieving the pressure by clearing long. However, by the same token he was always happy to use the short outlet of Luke Ayling at right-back.
Overall: A good showing; a couple of errors, but always to be expected for a player making just his third league appearance of the season. There is a good goalkeeper there, but he needs to play regularly for his own good as well as to push Scott Loach fully for his place as number one.
Gavin Massey came off the bench after 67 minutes, but didn`t really see much of the ball during his 23 minute cameo. He used the ball well on the few occasions he got hold of it however.
