AFC Fylde scored three times in the final 13 minutes to come from behind and beat Hartlepool United 3-1 at Mill Farm, with Luke McCormick equalising on his first league start before substitutes Millar Matthews-Lewis and Jack Morris completed the turnaround.
Craig Mahon handed a debut to Everton loanee George Pickford in goal, while Kyrell Malcolm and McCormick also made their first starts for the Coasters. Hartlepool manager Pete Wild made three changes, bringing Adam Smith, Brooklyn Ilunga and former Fylde forward Luke Charman into his starting line-up.
Hartlepool took the lead inside three minutes when Max Clark found Will Harris in the penalty area. The forward finished beyond Pickford for his second goal in successive league matches, but the young goalkeeper prevented him adding another with an important save shortly afterwards.
Fylde had an opportunity to equalise when McCormick met a delivery with a header that Smith gathered. Hartlepool also threatened a second before half-time, with Cole Deeming collecting a knock-down from Harris before shooting over from the edge of the area. The visitors reached the interval 1-0 ahead.
Wild introduced Chris Popov for Charman at half-time, and the substitute nearly doubled Hartlepool’s lead early in the second period. A scramble inside the Fylde penalty area left Popov with a close-range opportunity, but Chris Merrie cleared his effort off the line.
Fylde continued searching for an equaliser, with McCormick shooting over after Aaron Drewe had pulled the ball back into the area. Mahon introduced Matthews-Lewis for Cedric Main in the 57th minute and Morris for Danny Mayor five minutes later, before bringing on Ethan Mitchell and Dylan Allen-Hadley in the 73rd minute.
The equaliser finally arrived in the 77th minute when Mitchell supplied McCormick, who found space around 10 yards from goal and drove a shot into the bottom corner beyond Smith. It was the midfielder’s first National League goal for Fylde and brought the hosts level after trailing for more than 70 minutes.
Four minutes later, Matthews-Lewis reacted quickest to a loose ball inside the Hartlepool penalty area and drilled his finish past Smith to score his first goal for the Coasters. Fylde had overturned the deficit in the space of four minutes.
The hosts completed the scoring in the 90th minute when Allen-Hadley supplied fellow substitute Morris, who finished from close range to make it 3-1. All three Fylde goals had arrived in the closing stages, with the substitutes directly involved in each of them.
The victory gave Fylde an immediate response to their 4-0 defeat at Boreham Wood and kept Mahon’s side seventh in the National League with 26 points from 15 matches. Hartlepool’s two-match winning sequence came to an end, leaving Pete Wild’s side on 15 points from 15 games after their earlier victories over Forest Green Rovers and Hornchurch.
