BOSS Tom Killick insists Poole Town are "not good enough to cruise through any game".

Dolphins tomorrow head to lowly Bishop's Stortford bidding to maintain their play-off push.

Killick's team has emerged from a testing sequence of fixtures – including clashes with top two Maidenhead and Ebbsfleet – with their top-five bid firmly intact.

Bishop's Stortford, by contrast, sit one place off the foot of the table.

But Killick is summoning memories of bruising defeats by struggling pair Oxford City and Concord Rangers to remind his team of the need to deliver a performance imbued with their usual character in Hertfordshire.

He told the Daily Echo: "We have learned to our cost that if you don’t properly apply yourselves to the task then the teams at the bottom will beat you.

"In the league below we could get through these types of games without being at one hundred per cent.

"That is not the case in this division. Bishop’s Stortford are fighting to stay in the league. they will be hugely motivated and determined in their approach to the game.

"And we’re away from home. So when you put all those things together… we are not good enough to cruise through this type of game.

"We are not good enough to win games without properly applying ourselves and playing with a real intensity.

"That is the only way we are effective as a side. When we lose our intensity, our motivation and our spirit we become very, very ordinary."

Killick, who has this week signed free agent and former Dolphins' loanee James Granger on a game-by-game basis, is not expecting to have any of his walking wounded available this weekend.

But even with the likes of Lewis Lindsay, Jake Smeeton, Shaun Cooper, Richard Gillespie and Michael Walker missing for varying degrees of time, Dolphins have lost just once in nine games.

Only Maidenhead and Ebbsfleet have let-in fewer goals than the 28 Poole have conceded in 29 matches.

"For me, that says what we are about as a team," added Killick.

"We will not necessarily cut through teams at will and score four of five goals every week.

"We take pride in fighting really hard not to let in any goals. That is something that is drummed into the team.

"Collectively they have an extremely strong desire to not concede goals."

Killick also provided a positive update on the club's urgent drive to upgrade their Black Gold Stadium.

Poole face demotion back down to the Southern League if they do not complete a host of improvements before March 31.

"I have been reassured that work is being done and it will be completed on time," said Killick.

"There is still a lot of fundraising going on and I would ask everyone to be aware of the importance of trying to raise as much money as possible to pay for it all.

"I have every confidence it will be done in time."