BOSS Jason Tindall insisted Cherries were in a “good position” at the halfway stage of the Championship season but urged his troops to “kick on”.

The Dorset club reached the 23-game mark for the campaign sitting third in the second tier, one point behind second-placed Swansea and five adrift of leaders Norwich.

Cherries have recorded 42 points at present this season – they had totalled 45 points to be top of the pile at this stage during their historic 2014-15 Championship winning term.

Asked for his thoughts at the halfway stage, the boss told the Daily Echo: “I think we’re in a good position. You want to be as high up the league table as possible.

“Hopefully everyone can stay fit, hopefully we can keep improving, getting better and kick on now for the second half of the season.

“Cameron Carter-Vickers is now back, Jack Stacey is now back, we’ve got Chris Mepham who is back on the training ground, got (Arnaut) Danjuma that’s back on the training ground, got Josh King who completed 90 minutes against Oldham.

“So, I think when you look at the players we’ve been without for the past eight, nine or 10 games, to have them coming back to fitness now for the second half of the season is going to make us stronger.”

The manager was reacting after Cherries were pegged back to settle for a 1-1 draw at home to Millwall on Tuesday night.

Dom Solanke’s 10th goal of the season was cancelled out by substitute Matt Smith’s strike 11 minutes from time.

Quizzed on whether he was personally happy with how things were going, the 43-year-old replied: “Of course, I’ve got to be happy, taking everything into consideration and where we are.

“I still think there’s more to come, certainly now we’re getting everybody back. We’re in a good position now to kick on for the second half of the season.

“Now we just need to make sure we do that and we attack the next half of the season in the right way, that’s going to be good enough to get us enough points.

“We’ve certainly got the goals in the team to do that.”

Cherries host Luton at Vitality Stadium on Saturday (3pm) before a Tuesday night trip to Derby County (6pm).