POOLE Town boss Tom Killick admits it felt "unusual" to play a supposed home match at The Avenue, but was relieved to secure a "vital" victory over Beaconsfield Town.

Due to a host of postponements because of a waterlogged pitch at Black Gold Stadium, Dolphins took the decision to arrange with Dorchester Town to use their artificial surface for last night's Southern League South clash.

And the change of venue did not hamper their chances as they ran out 3-1 winners thanks to goals from Corby Moore, Harry Baker and Luke Pardoe.

The win left Dolphins ninth in the table, seven points off the play-offs, but still with games in hand on all the sides above them.

Speaking to BBC Radio Solent, Killick said: "Not having to look out the window every five minutes during the afternoon just to see if it's raining was fairly relaxing.

"Looking at my weather apps on my phone and staring out the window wondering what's happening has been really the story of my life over the last few weeks so it was nice knowing we were definitely going to play and we are grateful to Dorchester for their cooperation in allowing us to stage the fixture."

Asked if it felt strange to be playing a home game away from Poole, Killick added: "I suppose the nearest you get to it is you play finals at neutral grounds but I think a few years we might've played a home game at Wimborne when we had a similar sort of fixture backlog.

"It's certainly a little while ago and it's certainly unusual. We didn't want to have to do it but we felt we'd reached a stage in the season where we just could not risk another postponement and with the benefit of hindsight, it probably would've helped us if we'd done it three or four weeks earlier."

Struggling Beaconsfield missed a good chance to go ahead with James Ewington denied by returning goalkeeper Nick Hutchings.

Moore then broke the deadlock for the Dolphins with a long-range strike in the 15th minute, which was quickly added to by Baker, turning in after Pardoe had struck the crossbar.

Beaconsfield rallied in the second half, pulling a goal back through Ewington, before Cherries loanee Pardoe sealed the points.

"I think when you look at the league table there's a lot of sides that are obviously quite a few points above us and they're good sides," said Killick.

"You don't see that they're all going to drop lots and lots of points so we've talked about it as a group that we really need to show very strong form from now until the end of the season if we're going to overhaul the sides that are above us.

"Last night really I felt was just absolutely vital in starting to make our way into those positions. I felt if we dropped points yesterday it just would be starting to be very difficult for us.

"So we're all relieved and we hope that it can give us some good confidence going into Saturday."

Poole will hope to return to Black Gold Stadium to host Hartley Wintney this weekend.

Dolphins: Hutchings, Dickson, Whisken, Spetch, Leslie-Smith, Smeeton, Carmichael, Moore, Brooks, Pardoe, Baker.

Subs: Maybury, Jackson, Nippard, Grange, Phillips (g/k).