SWANAGE Town and Herston manager Paul Whitton says a pre-match summit with his players made the difference after they held Sherborne Town to a 3-3 draw on Saturday.

Swans have been on a rotten run of form lately, and had taken just three points from eight games ahead of the match at Days Park.

Before his players warmed up for the contest, he held a heart-to-heart discussion with them in the changing rooms in a bid to get to the bottom of the team’s recent slump.

Whitton believes Swans were simply low on confidence, but he hopes this was lifted after Jason Morgan’s brace and an Anthony Warrington strike earned them a point against sixth-placed Sherborne.

He said: “We had gone for so long losing and just weren’t getting any luck. To me, the players seemed to believe that we were just going to go out and not get a result.

“The meeting was more to ask them if they thought I was doing something wrong, or what they thought was wrong.

“It was just an open, honest discussion between a group of blokes in the changing rooms. If they had a problem with each other, we could have discussed it. But there wasn’t too much to discuss.

“We all realised that we were starting to believe we would lose every week. We needed to change that around and start believing we could win.

“We’ve proved we can compete with the best teams in the league and hopefully we can keep the momentum going now.

“When you’re down the bottom, everything seems to go against you and it’s very difficult to change it.

“Hopefully, we’ve managed to get the belief back into the players and they have the belief in themselves, which they should have. They’re more than good enough to be playing at this level.”

Elsewhere, Hamworthy Recreation extended their lead at the Magna Dorset Premier League summit to seven points after winning 2-1 at Chickerell United.

Jamie Moores and Ashley Boyt were on target for the champions.

Second-from-bottom Cranborne picked up a shock win at Blandford United after Adam Beattie struck eight minutes from time.

Poole Borough’s second-half comeback earned them a 3-1 victory at home to basement club Sturminster Newton.

Mike Budd put the Cherries in charge after four minutes, but a Jamie Holland penalty levelled matters on 64.

James Stickland put the Hornets ahead after 74 minutes and Ryan Ross sealed the points seven minutes from time.

Hamworthy United were destroyed 9-0 at Portland United, while Holt United went down 3-0 away to Westland Sports.

Parley Sports lost 1-0 at home to Wincanton Town and an Adam Light goal could not save Merley Cobham Sports from a 2-1 defeat at home to Bridport.