Ricky Ravenhill column: There’s no hiding from the fact that Hartlepool was a bad game all round for every reason. Over the last year and a half, we’ve not had a lot like that.

It’s hard to take but it’s part of the game. If you are honest, every footballer will be on the wrong end of a game like that at some point in their career.

It’s how you deal with it that counts.

We’re not going to brush it under the carpet but equally there’s no point in making what went wrong into a massive issue.

I can’t explain how it happened but we’ve looked at what went wrong and the points which we know we can improve.

It was completely out of character from the team that we have built in the last 18 months and I’m sure it won’t happen again.

It’s a reality check for everyone – and a kick up the backside to remind us that we’ve got to be on our game no matter where we are playing and who against.

Nobody has got the God given right to just turn up and expect to win.

You see that in cup games every year when Premier League teams get beaten by clubs from lower divisions. If you take your foot off the gas, those results can happen – as we found out to our cost on Tuesday.

The next game can’t come soon enough. We’ve got the chance to put that out the system against Brentford tomorrow.

Football can change very quickly and a good performance and win will completely banish the demons.

Brentford are another good team but we’ve done our homework and we want to make our home a fortress like we did last year.

We played them in the FA Cup and can take a lot of positives from that. At their place in the replay, we finished the game with three or four youth players on the pitch and still took them to extra-time.

We were a lower division team then but now we’re on a level par. We’ve strengthened and we want to show that tomorrow and forget about what happened the other night.