TRANMERE used up more luck in beating Hartlepool on Saturday than any team should expect to enjoy in one game. Rovers laid claim to three points that keep them in touch with the promotion chasing pack with the help of a penalty, a goal carelessly gifted by the opposition, and an own goal.

Then they needed more good fortune to protect the precious advantage in the face of a bold Hartlepool fightback. If Pools substitute Tom Craddock had not missed a 78th minute spot kick, Rovers would have suffered the embarrassment of surrendering a two-goal advantage to a team playing with 10 men for the best part of an hour.

A third strike in injury time by Shane Sherriff, from a well worked set play, produced a scoreline that flattered the home side’s nervous second-half performance.

It need not be a bad omen however. The last time Tranmere enjoyed this much rub of the green, in a 1-0 win at Millwall in January, they embarked upon an eight-game unbeaten run. Another sequence like that is just what Rovers now require to secure a play-off spot.

Even so, this was too close for anyone’s comfort. Manager Ronnie Moore was willing to guess that if Craddock had converted the penalty, given away by Antony Kay’s rash tackle, wobbly Rovers would have gone on to lose the game.

The home team’s loss of composure after establishing a 2-0 lead in the 64th minute may have had something to do with the tensions of a frantic and congested race for a top six finish in League One. But it was more likely to have been brought on by the strength of Hartlepool’s unexpected fightback.

Danny Wilson’s team made no concession to the handicap of being a man short and boldly seized the initiative.

Tranmere were pressed back so hard that there were lengthy periods in the last 20 minutes when they could scarcely move the ball out of their own half.

The confidence generated by a run of three wins before this game was evident in some of Hartlepool’s sharp passing and movement.

Tranmere’s uneasy defending and loss of cohesion going forward in that final phase added to the impression of a team casting anxiously about for leadership on the field. There wasn’t an obvious candidate to be found. Rovers scrambled through on the strength of the decent work they put in during the first hour – and the good fortune that stayed with them to the end.

They were solid value for the 1-0 lead they took into the interval, even if the quality of their football was a little short of the high levels they touched at Swansea last Tuesday.

Moore, forced by injury and illness to gamble on an early return to first-team duty for Chris Shuker, was rewarded by an encouraging 70 minute contribution from the winger.

Shuker understandably lacks some pace and sharpness after playing just one game, for the reserves last Wednesday, in the last two-and-a-half months. He rarely attempted to take on a defender. But Shuker was still able to deliver a succession of dangerous crosses into the Hartlepool box – the kind of end product that was sometimes lacking in his absence.

A well-measured Shuker cross from the right gave Sherriff the chance to stretch Hartlepool goalkeeper Arran Lee-Barratt with a downward header on 22 minutes. Another ball in from Shuker bounced off Steve Jennings to Chris Greenacre, who fired narrowly over from a tight angle.

So Tranmere’s opening goal on 36 minutes was hardly overdue, although it was a gift. Hartlepool centre-back Michael Nelson put his defence under pressure with an inadvertent back header. Fullback Jamie McCunnie failed to intercept then, stretching to retrieve the ball, tripped Ian Moore as the striker seized on the opportunity.

It was a clear penalty. Referee Dean Whitehouse judged that as McCartney was the last defender between Moore and goal it was also a sending-off offence – a double punishment that did not fit the crime.

Lee-Barratt, diving to his right, pushed out of Greenacre’s low spot kick but lay stranded as the striker nudged the rebound over his body and into the net.