Tom Killick rues 'huge error' from officials in Poole draw

A classic tale of two halves, Poole took the lead after 21 minutes via Tony Lee, who remained composed to finish off a well-worked team move.

Dolphins then continued to control the first half, with claims for a penalty denied before an extremely tight offside call chalked off a potential second for Lee.

Speaking to the Daily Echo, Killick said: “I thought it was feisty and competitive. Sometimes it lacked a bit of quality probably because it was so ferocious, in terms of the physicality of it. Perhaps the quality of the game suffered a little bit because of that.

“There were two things that were very big that went against us. My players are absolutely adamant that there’s a nailed-on handball in the box at 1-0 in the first half, and we’re also very, very certain that the goal should never be disallowed for offside.

“Tony was never offside – and whoever was potentially offside in the middle, is not affecting play. It was just a huge error.

“It’s one of those where VAR would have completely overruled it in the space of five seconds, because it was such a clear and obvious error.”

The hosts, galvanised by the half-time break, took control of the second period, eventually equalising through Sam Ashton with a goal a near replica of Lee’s opener.

Once the hosts restored parity shortly after the hour mark, the game became a lot cagier and even, leading to the spoils being shared equally.

“I felt we dealt with things fairly well” continued Killick. “I thought we had a bad spell, quite a long spell, in the second half. The first period of the second half, they were good, and we were struggling.

“They were probably the better side in the second half. For the first half an hour, they were very strongly the better side, but we came into it as the half progressed.

“Overall, we’re reasonably pleased – Salisbury are a very good side, and we are away from home.”