DANNY Holmes hopes Wednesday’s defeat at Farnborough will serve as a “wake-up call” to his Wimborne players.

Magpies went down 2-1 at Cherrywood Road, despite a debut goal for striker Rico Wilson.

A first-half brace from Andrew Sealey-Harris did the job for Farnborough, who registered a first Southern League South win since August, whilst inflicting a third straight defeat on Wimborne.

“We were really poor, especially in the first half,” boss Holmes told Radio Wimborne.

“I want to stick up for the lads but it’s hard to because we’re not starting well at all. It’s not just Wednesday, it’s been the last few weeks. In the first half we give teams the lead or let them get on the front foot. We’re just miles behind. Something needs to change with that situation, maybe the warm-up or whatever. But certainly we need to start games much brighter. We made our own problems.”

He added: “For Saturday (at Chesham) there could be some changes. I need more than that. We need to start better than that. We need to be more professional and not just give silly goals away.

“I’m expecting much better on Saturday. Hopefully that’s a bit of a wake-up call for the boys.

"We’ve got to maintain a little bit of consistency.”