Barnsley Sport<div id="articleoptions"> </div><div id="viewarticle"><div class="right"></div><div class="ds-headline" id="ds-headline">Ritchie takes his work home</div><div class="ds-firstpara" id="ds-firstpara">THE Morning Star had a stringer at Hartlepool. </div><div class="va-bodytext" id="va-bodytext">So one bloke was happy with an equal-shares outcome. Barnsley wanted more, drop-threatened Hartlepool likewise. Both got what they deserved. Now, up in the play-off places, ominously for Andy Ritchie it's building towards a home town v workplace situation. Barnsley are holding off Oldham from the top six. Ritchie still lives around there. Why wouldn't he? The goals he got for Oldham, it should be for free. But the business end of his life is Barnsley. And at Hartlepool on Saturday he knew his team should have done better and very nearly did worse. "We wanted to come and get three points. For the first 15 minutes we didn't handle their corners very well," the Barnsley boss reckoned. "We could have been three down but once we got to grips with the corners I thought we scored at a good time, we were on top of them. "The second half was pretty even. You could probably say that we carved out more chances but Hartlepool had a chance at the end and we nearly self-destructed again. "The players have got to learn when to get the ball out of the danger area, we didn't do that on that last chance they had." Eifion Williams' miss in the last minute was from four yards and somehow scooped over the top. Harder to miss than score type thing. Final score 2-1 would have been tough on Barnsley even though 3-0 to Hartlepool would have been fair enough after the opening 15 minutes. Hartlepool had corners, Barnsley had panic attacks. Hartlepool scored from a Michael Maidens' set-piece, flicked on by Michael Nelson and finished from four yards by Joel Porter. From another corner, centre-back Nelson drove a shot against the bar and before that Adam Boyd wasted a free header following a long throw by Ritchie Humphreys. Barnsley needed something and Antony Kay found it. Ritchie picked big lads, head-the-ball strikers Tommy Wright and Marc Richards, ahead of Paul Hayes and Daniel Nardiello. Sure enough the equaliser came from a simple centre and a more than decent header. Odd though it was makeshift midfielder Kay who dived in and directed home. It was his first goal of a season which has seen him usually in the back four. From Kay's header Barnsley really kicked on and they might have added more before the break but for keeper Dimitrios Konstantopoulos, who played out of his skin for Hartlepool. Barnsley keeper Nick Colgan was no slouch either. His stop on a Chris Llewellyn header was alone worth his pay packet this week. The second half flowed this way and that. Brian Howard blasted a sweet volley which was saved and Hartlepool's finest moment was that late miss by Eifion Williams following a deep centre by Darren Williams. Stand-in Hartlepool boss Paul Stephenson said afterwards: "I was delighted with the performance. We looked dangerous, especially at set-pieces. "We knew we had to take our chances. Three points today was just not to be. I thought there was only one side out there playing football and that was us. They were looking to go long, over the top. A lot of that was in the first half when they were just looking to get it away from their box." simon.meeks@sheffieldnewspapers.co.uk</div><div class="va-date" id="va-date">20 March 2006</div></div>
