By Albatross
March 17 2006

It's a long way from the Millennium Stadium to Gigg Lane; Jon Daly, so nearly the hero for Pools in the Playoff Final, is heading out on loan to Bury for the rest of the season. Could this be the end of his time at Victoria Park? Although Daly has shown flashes of what he's capable of, the feeling is that in general he's disappointed and with Boyd and Porter both back in first team action he's dropped a long way down the pecking order. Whether he'll get more first team football at Bury remains to be seen, but it's a pretty safe bet that he wouldn't be getting much at Pools for the rest of the season.

In fact, this may be a prelude to a permanent move away from the club for the Irishman. He may have got one or two vital goals for the club, but six in 27 starts and 21 sub appearances has hardly been prolific and all too often his other play has not made up for it. There have been exceptions; against Port Vale and Doncaster earlier this season he made a real nuisance of himself up front, scoring the winning goal at the Earth Stadium. And amongst those six goals are one of the ones that helped secure us a playoff place and one that put us ahead at Cardiff in the Playoff Final.

When he arrived from Stockport, a number of their fans were keen to tell us how little they rated him and how they were astonished that they'd got a fee for him. Whether Chris Turner shares that opinion and that's why he's on his way I'm not sure, but Daly has been at times a frustrating player to watch. Sometimes I've felt sorry for him; when on the pitch Pools tended to revert to pumping long balls towards him and it made the whole side look poor. Other times I've been full of praise, as he's battled manfully up front winning innumerable headers. However he's simply failed to be consistent and there have been too many frustrating performances where his lack of pace has been badly exposed and he's not had any sort of impact.

Now he's heading back to a club in the North-West, and one he played for on loan just over two years ago. Stephenson is talking about him needing games, but to my eyes Daly's future at the club is in the balance: will he be coming back at all? Who can say.....