MANAGER Tom Killick admitted speculation over his future would be inevitable after Poole Town’s promotion dream was ended by St Neots.

Dolphins surrendered the Southern League championship in a spirit-crushing last-day defeat to Corby and then exited the play-offs with a 1-0 semi-final reverse against the Saints last night.

At the end of March, Poole held a one-point lead at the summit with three games in hand but a trio of defeats in five days over Easter scrubbed their advantage.

The setback prompted rumours of talks between the long-serving manager and the Tatnam club’s board with self-critic Killick adamant the club should forget his past achievements when the inquest begins.

Killick told the Daily Echo: “If I was in the club’s position I would want some questions answered about what happened over these past few weeks and why.

“I love Poole and have been here a long time. I wouldn’t want to leave on this note but I have a lot of respect for the directors and would not want to rely on previous successes.

“Clearly, something like this merits a lot of analysis and I don’t know what will happen.

“At the moment, my sympathies are with the players, directors and supporters because they deserve better. It is such an overwhelming low for everyone so we will have to see how it pans out.

“It has been a catastrophic few weeks. We have relinquished something we thought was in the palm of our hands and now have to deal with that.

“I take full responsibility for it because I am in charge. Having got in the position we did, we should never have let it go.

“I genuinely don’t blame the players. There were mistakes made by me in the way that we approached games and we paid the price.

"People won’t see it now but the club has got an awful lot out of the squad. They have been exceptional and deserve a lot of credit but they won’t get any because of how it has ended. I understand that but it doesn’t necessarily make it right.

“The damage was done over Easter. Without doubt, mistakes have been made but we have plenty of time to reflect on now.”

Assessing the St Neots clash, Killick added: “Funnily enough I thought we played quite a lot better than we did on Saturday.

"We did not deserve to beat Corby but felt we controlled the game against St Neots, created numerous chances and deserved more.

“I was proud of the players for the way they coped with the disappointment of Saturday. We could have done better towards the end – the last half an hour was not very good – but I felt they gave as much as they could in very testing circumstances."