POOLE Town boss Tom Killick shared his gratitude towards Cherries after they agreed to send an XI for a friendly next month.

Whilst Scott Parker and the first team will be in Portugal when a youthful Cherries travel to the BlackGold Stadium on Thursday, July 18, (7.45pm kick-off), Killick believes that the clash will still prove a stern test for the Dolphins.

Cherries’ current youth team managers, Shaun Cooper (under-23s) and Alan Connell (under-18s) both finished their careers with Poole Town, facilitating a relationship between Killick and his former charges.

Talking about the relationship between his side and their Premier League neighbours, Killick told the Daily Echo: “Shaun has been great, but it wouldn't be fair to single Shaun out because Bournemouth as a whole, Alan Connell, Carl Fletcher, Shaun, they’ve all being very supportive and helpful to us in recent times.

“I was in ongoing dialogue with Shaun from the end of last season to see if something could be accommodated, and it looked unlikely for quite a while, but we're unbelievably grateful to Shaun and everyone else out for fitting something in with us.

“Because it's a sign of Bournemouth’s transformation, really, that we've always looked on playing their first team as a prestigious fixture, but now we look at playing their under-23s as a prestigious fixture.

“Probably the chances of playing their first team in terms of local clubs, that's probably a ship that’s sailed.

“But to get their under-23s, when they're sort of packed full of the type of players that they're packed full of, youth internationals, players from overseas, players that are not that short of being Premier League footballers.

“It's just a great fixture for us.”

Over a decade ago when Poole were in the Wessex League and Cherries were still in the lower reaches of the Football League, a first-team squad would be sent down to Tatnam for a pre-season game.

Despite the fact the fixture is now fulfilled with members of Cherries’ youth squads and Dolphins now ply their trade in the Southern League, Killick shared that it was arguably a tougher challenge for his charges.

He continued: “When you think about it, when Bournemouth were in the lower reaches of the Football league, when we used to play the first team in a friendly, we used to think we might have a chance of winning the game.

“Certainly we would always think that we could make it competitive.

“Now we really struggle to make it competitive against the under-23s. So that's the challenge. We got an absolute run-around by the under-23’s last year, so is a real test for us.

“I think it's very good for us to come up against that level of opposition, that level of sort of athleticism.

“It's just brilliant all around. I'm really happy and very grateful to Coops and everyone else for making it happen.”