PERSONAL joy at being back in the Hartlepool United side for Sam Collins was tempered by the outcome of his return.

Pools’ skipper, who had missed the previous four games with medial knee ligament trouble, returned to the fold at the weekend.

But a 4-0 loss at London Road wasn’t in the script as Pools collapsed in the second period.

“It’s nice to be back from a personal point of view, but overall it’s disappointing,’’ he reflected.

“To lose 4-0 is not good enough, is it? It flattered them, but they were poor goals to give away from our point of view.

“We had chances to go ahead in the first-half and if we had put those away it would have been a different game.

“It’s frustrating. It’s so unlike us, especially away from home, to have a spell like we did when we concede goals quickly like that.

“We are usually good at soaking up pressure and being disciplined and resolute.

They didn’t trouble us in the first half and we created some good chances. But to concede twice so quickly it harms you and we capitulated a bit.

“We had a good point and a clean sheet on Tuesday and we hoped that would be a starting point for us to go on a run and get back to the form and results we had been having last month.

Fellow centre-half Peter Hartley went off on 53 minutes after succumbing to an illness bug. He joins Paul Murray and James Brown on the sicklist, with Brown not travelling to London Road.

“Peter had felt quite poorly on Saturday morning but was then OK,’’ said Mick Wadsworth. “It’s a shame because I thought he had a very good first-half but he got worse and worse and was struggling at half-time.

“I don’t know if it’s the same bug, we’ve had three players ill this week, but it’s a bit worrying when we’re all travelling, rooming and training together.

“Losing Peter was a big issue. He was feeling terrible at half-time and was really struggling.’’