After stretching the home defence wide on the left we kept the pressure on and spun the ball to stand off Davy Tighe from a maul. Boatman and Hare were wide on the left and Davy's long pass was all that was needed to send the flanker diving in.
With a disappointed home crowd baying their annoyance Davy cooly stepped to slot the kick and end the game.
It was hard luck on a hard working and honest Rovers side who were far more gracious in defeat than some of their supporters who surrounded Ref John Richardson at the end. But the sooner that is forgotten the better for Hartlepool rugby.
We started the game with a frustrated Tim Sawyer forced to rest his injured shoulder, and with debut centre Tony Gamwell outside Peter Hodgson. In what was always going to be a tense game we opted for experience over youth wherever possible with Anth Carr and Phil Wallis on the bench.
We opened brightly with Davy missing a 28m pen on ten minutes. We kept the pressure up and did go ahead a minute later when we moved the ball quickly left. Andrew Hare was in space to score in the top corner with Davy kicking a super conversion to make it 7-0.
Rovers began to get into the game but were dealt a blow on the quarter hour when dangerman Brian Foreman was sin-binned for going into a tackle with his forearm raised.
Brother Gareth was also having a fine game and only a last ditch tackle from Davy Tighe stopped him racing for the corner, but Rovers did get level on the half hour with Simon Rutherford rounding off a bit of forward pressure.
The home side then went into the elad when Brian Foreman seemed to have acres of space as he galloped in under th posts to make it 14-7 at half time.
The first haf had been punctuated by a series of penalties against West - mainly for hads on the floor. It had disprupted our possession but when we did get the ball out wide Peter Hodgson was in fine form and debutant Gamwell proved to be a strong runner although he'd chosen the hardest of games to m ake his return to the club!
We started the second half as we had the first - in posession and pressuring Rovers without looking too dangerous. Tighe narrowly missed a 40 metre penalty on 46 minutes but he did manage one in front of the post on 58 minutes.
Rovers were rarely venturing near to our 22 but they almost got a match winning try in bizarre circumstances after 70 minutes. We had been atacking their line with first Peter Hodgson being held up just a couple of feet short, and then replacemnt Phil Wallis coming inside to beart two men only to be be stopped inches from the line.
We recycled the ball yet again and Darren Thomas spun it right only to find Simon Rutherford stading between him and the two man overlap of Wallis and Todd. Rutheford knocked the ball forward and the chased it and kicked to touch on the half way line where the Ref awarded a line-out!
Rovers then managed to work play into our bottom corner where Stuart Ryder suddenly popped up unbound from the scrum and we were able to relieve the pressure.
Back we came to mount the pressure that finally saw the winning try. It was no more than we deserved for our second half consistency - and that strange decision which even Rovers players admitted in the bar could well have been a penalty try.
We needed the points and, hopefully, its the start of a run of form. Our back row were superb with Jonny Boatman and big hitting Henry Tones vying for man of the match.