ASSISTANT boss Jason Tindall admitted Cherries were relieved their “risky decision” to throw Michael Symes into battle against Carlisle had paid off.

Symes, who had been troubled by a persistent shoulder injury, played his part in Cherries’ 2-0 win over the Cumbrians after coming off the bench at the interval.

The striker replaced Shaun Cooper in a tactical switch and sealed victory when he confidently despatched a penalty, his second successful spot kick since joining Cherries in the summer.

Tindall said: “We felt we needed another front player on to give us more of an attacking threat and Michael did that for us. He did well.

“We’ve been struggling recently for centre-forwards and Michael had only been training for the past week or so and only on a full-contact basis for the past couple of days.

“It was always going to be a risky decision to put him on at any time and that was the reason we didn’t start with him. Thankfully for us, he did well when he came on and didn’t aggravate his injury.”

Tindall added: “We were very pleased with the three points because Carlisle are a very good side. We were disappointed with the first-half performance because it was scrappy and there weren’t too many chances.

“But we came in at 0-0 and it gave us an opportunity to change things at half-time. The lads deserve a lot of credit because they performed extremely well in the second half.”

Tindall also had words of praise for new loan signing Adam Smith, whose trickery earned Cherries their penalty following a foul by Francois Zoko.

“He did well,” said Tindall. “It is always difficult for a new player coming into the side, especially during the latter part of the week. But we did some good work with Adam and he went out and performed extremely well. He won the penalty and we were very pleased with his performance.”