Brown earns praise after win

Hartlepool striker James Brown won special praise from boss Neale Cooper after running himself to a standstill in the 2-1 win at Bury.

Brown was asked to play a lone striker's role after teenager Luke James was ruled out due to a back injury and Cooper stressed he only took him off and replaced him with Adam Boyd in the 59th minute because he had run out of gas. "It wasn't because he wasn't having a good game, he was shattered playing that role and was tired at half-time," Cooper told the club's official website. "I asked him to give us another 10 or 15 minutes and it was a belly at the graveyard shift. We've got to watch how we treat James because he's not lightning quick and [Adam] Boydy is a similar kind of player. "A great 'outball' for us would have been in behind with the likes of Luke's pace, but we couldn't do that because we don't have other players like that at the club. "But the main thing was we got back to winning ways and they fought hard and I'm proud of them because we took a hiding on Saturday, which hurt us all."