OPPOSITION NOTES- Poole Town

Poole Town come into their trip down to Gloucestershire, sitting in 10th place in Southern Premier Divison South with 23 points from 17 games,

The Dolphins are just four points off the playoffs, albeit are in a sticky run of form having won just three of their past 12 games.

The away side started the seasonn strongly having picked up 10 points from their first five fixtures, with their only defeat at home to fancied AFC Totton but have tailed off considerably having won just twice in the last two months, away results against Basingtstoke and basement battlers Frome Town.

As those two wins show, the side who play in red and white, have a stronger away record than than at their home stadium the Tatnam Ground having picked up a possible 12 from nine away fixtures losing just the twice, in contrast to their home form where they have picked up just 11 from nine.

To bolster their poor form in the league, they played in a mid week friendly against Shafesbury to build confdence and minutes to a side that will need to reverse a slide of fortunes that has seen them slipping away from the top five and into the playoffs.

The South Coast side have one of the poorest attack in the divison, being the lowest scorers in the top half of the table scoring just 18 goals and have only scored more goals than the bottom two sides Froome and Marlow.

Their strong defence is keeping them within the playoff hunt having conceded 22 goals so far, only one more than the Tigers, meaning that predominantly their matches are low scoring.

They have failed to score in 35% of their matches so far.

While Poole games are unlikely to have goals in them when they do score, they normally convert having got 2.69 points per games when they do take the lead, in comparison to a paltry 0.50 when they fall behind.

The dangerman to watch out for is striker Toby Holmes who last season scored every other game for the dolphins having netted 22 times in 44 appearances.

This season he has been less proflic scoring just six times in all competitions, albeit he has scored a third of the goals by Poole.

Their next top scorer has a plethora of players joint on two strikes with Ezio Touray, Tom Hewlett, Rafa Ramos, Tyrique Clarke and Charlie Davis all joint level.

For the visit of the Tigers, they will be without right back Oakley Hanger after he picked up a sending off at the death of their 2-1 loss to Hanwell Town

The boos of the away side is former Torquay United and Exeter City full back Steve Tully who took charge in March 2024, after former Bournemouth forward Matt Tubbs resigned from the club.

At a tricky end to the season which saw star forward Tony Lee leave to divison and south coast rivals AFC Totton, Poole finished 13th in the league and their curent form and table placing in the divisons suggest that the 2024/25 season will bring more of the same.