Hartlepool United Football Club

Dave Challinor has revealed that he will be making the most

of a rare blank Saturday by heading to Notts County to make a personal check on

next weekend's opponents.

The Pools boss was left as frustrated as anyone when Saturday's scheduled game at Solihull Moors was postponed following a 9.30am pitch inspection.

Challinor and the squad spent the night in a hotel near

Solihull in preparation for the game but found out shortly after breakfast that

Storm Dennis had put paid to the fixture.

However, Challinor has now swiftly rearranged his plans for

the rest of the day to make sure he can go to Meadow Lane for one of the only

National League fixtures to so far survive the weather.

“When severe weather is forecast like this you have to look

at the situation and say that, regardless of where you are in the country, it's

going to affect you,” Challinor admitted.

“Even if the pitch is playable, the wind that is due toarrive would make the game a bit of a lottery.

“When you look at our division and National Leagues North

and South, the amount of games going ahead is minimal so we knew it would have

to be something special if we were going to get played.

 “Looking on the bright

side, we've actually benefitted from training on a really good surface at Aston

Villa on Friday.

“Obviously, the disappointing thing is that you haven't gota game at the end of what has been a really good week of training.

“The planning starts straight away for next week now. I will

go to the Notts County game and watch them so that we can very quickly put a

plan in place.

“Nottingham isn't too far away from me so every cloud and

all that – it's still on as I speak so I will go and take in a live game there,

which will be useful.

“It's the second time I've been to watch at Notts County this season and the last time was really enjoyable so hopefully this afternoon will be just as good!

“It also gives us an extra day of training because we can really work the lads Monday and Tuesday and get through a lot of stuff we want to do, as well as reinforcing what we did last week.

“The lads will get a chance to go home and relax for theweekend before refocusing on their work on Monday morning.”