POOLE Town boss Tom Killick says he is not afraid of heaping pressure on himself by publicly talking up his team’s play-off ambitions.

Killick was stung by Dolphins’ meek FA Trophy exit at the hands of Weymouth on Tuesday. But the Tatnam club will get straight back on the horse when they travel to Dartford for a crucial National League South encounter tomorrow.

The two teams are separated only by Poole’s inferior goal difference, with the fifth-placed Kent side occupying the division’s final play-off berth.

And the manager says his side has a responsibility to maintain the standards they have set during their first season following promotion from the Southern League.

Killick told the Daily Echo: “We have to get back to playing the way we’re comfortable with and if we do that I think we’re capable of getting into the play-offs.

“People would say that’s an unbelievable achievement and it would be. But I’m not worried about setting myself up to fail or putting extra pressure on myself

“I get a bit irritated when I see players or managers minimising their ambitions to deflect pressure away from themselves.

“I’d rather aim for something big. If we fail we’ll put our hands up and say we failed. But I’d rather do it that way than trot out a line about how amazingly we’re doing to be in this league and above the relegation zone.

“We’ve gone beyond that now. We need to have a proper ambition and a proper target and I think that should be to reach the play-offs.”

Dartford are in rude health, beaten just one in their past 11 league outings.

Killick is quick to acknowledge, then, that gleaning any tangible reward from their trip to Princes Park represents a monumental task for his side.

But he is adamant Dolphins must deliver a compelling response to their defeat at Weymouth.

“Your immediate reaction following an upsetting result is to dwell on that disappointment,” said Killick.

“But as time passes you have to focus on your next game. We’re going away from home against a decent side, so we could play to our top level and still not get a result.

“We just have to concentrate on our performance. It’s important for the wellbeing of the group and our morale that we put in the sort of performance, in terms of our effort and determination, we know we’re capable of.

“If we do that then that’s a positive reaction to what’s happened.

“For the morale of the group we just need to prove to ourselves that we’re better than we showed against Weymouth.”

Killick refused to rule out the possibility of making changes to his side but he is expecting to be without defender Lewis Lindsay, who is still recovering from the knee problem which kept him out of the Weymouth defeat.

Dolphins: (from) Hutchings, Case, Spetch, Whisken, Cooper, Pettefer, Burbidge, Devlin, Surridge, Brooks, Roberts, Baggie, Muscalu, Gillespie, Moore, Gale, Rees (g/k).