NEALE Cooper admits he wonders what Adam Boyd would have done on Friday night if he had been fully fit.

Boyd's devastating hat-trick pushed Hartlepool United into fourth spot in League One as top six rivals Sheffield Wednesday were thumped at Victoria Park.

Brentford's 4-1 defeat at Bradford strengthened Pool's place and, while Martin Allen's side still have a game in hand - at Wrexham tomorrow - Pool's trump card could be Brentford's last two fixtures, against Hull and Luton.

But Cooper knows a win at Doncaster on Saturday would set Pool up for the finale and revealed Boyd hadn't trained all week before tearing Wednesday apart in atrocious conditions.

He said: "Boydy has been out all week, he's never trained and when you have been ill you don't want to play football in conditions like that.

"If you've been ill you would look outside and think 'oh, no'. But not Boydy, that performance was something else.

"His third goal was pure class. But I thought he was doing that all night, in the first-half he was turning defenders inside out for fun.''

Cooper lost Joel Porter with a pulled thigh muscle just seven minutes in, but added: "There was a lot of good individual performances, Gavin Strachan won a lot of ball in midfield and moved the ball forward, Ritchie Humphreys' workrate was massive.

"I thought Eifion Williams was excellent," said the boss.

"He came on early, he chased and harrassed. He came back a few weeks ago like that and then he was injured again and left out.

"I spoke to him and he knows what is required to play in this team and full credit to him for his performance against Sheffield Wednesday.''

Pool are two points, but three places, ahead of the Owls after Friday, but, Brentford aside, have a marginally worse goal difference than their other rivals.

Now there's Pool, Brentford, Bournemouth and Wednesday pushing for three places and Cooper added: "The good thing is that we've three games left and other teams are now looking up at us.

"We want to go out and win all four and that was one of our hardest games. Like (Wednesday boss) Paul Sturrock said, we wanted it more.

"That was the message before the game, whoever battles hardest and wants it more will win the game.

"We went at them from the off and with the week we have had with injuries and things to deal with, we looked strong.

"Now we need to show that kind of attitude and performance in our remaining games.

"Maybe one or two other teams thought that because we drew our last two games we were slipping up.

"The team who wants it the most will get it and we wanted Friday's game the most.

"At Hillsborough we were a little flat, but that wasn't the case this time.''

Boyd wasn't the only Pool player feeling under the weather last week, as Cooper revealed a quartet of his squad have been suffering.

"I've not had to stand and watch football in those sort of conditions before,'' he said

"We defended into the wind first half and I thought the defence and goalkeeper were excellent.

"We've had a lot of boys feeling ill - Hugh (Robertson), Boydy, (Chris) Westwood were all ill during the week and didn't come back to training until Thursday.

"Micky Barron has been off most of the week because he's been ill, Hugh Robertson was sent home on Friday morning with a fever.'

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