BOSS Tom Killick is hoping Poole Town’s morale-boosting win at Hemel Hempstead will be “a real shot in the arm” for his players.

Relegation-threatened Dolphins downed the high-flying Tudors 1-0 thanks to Richard Gillespie’s first-half header at Vauxhall Road.

The promotion-chasing hosts had been bidding to bring up a hat-trick of victories after seeing off fellow high-fliers/ big guns Braintree and Chelmsford in their two previous games.

But third-placed Hemel were stunned as Poole relatively comfortably pulled off their first win against a team currently in the top half of the table.

A second win in their past eight games saw Dolphins close to two points the gap to safety – with fellow strugglers Chippenham and Gloucester their next two opponents.

“We deserved to win and it was a big performance,” said Killick. “The players were very good. It wasn’t just the fact that we won, we were away from home against one of the best teams in the league.

“With the way the table is looking, we knew we couldn’t really afford not to pick up points and, when you are away to the team third in the league that is quite a pressured situation.

“We were comfortably the better side in the first half, albeit we were going down the slope and had the wind at our backs. We had four or five good chances and scored one.

“The second half was more even and we had to withstand five minutes of added time. They had a corner in the last seconds and, the way things have been going for us you feared something dreadful was going to happen but we stood firm.

“We scored an exceptional goal. It was a brilliant whipped cross from Jordan Williams and Gilly thumped in a header that probably went harder than I can kick these days!”

Killick handed a debut to new signing Uyi Alhevba, a Bournemouth University student who had impressed for the reserves.

“He was very good,” said Killick. “To give you an idea how new he is, he was calling Will Spetch number four all game because he didn’t know his name!”

Dolphins: Hutchings, Williams, Alhevba, Spetch, Whisken, Moore, Baghdadi (Neale, 90), Bedford, Bentley, Brooks, Gillespie (Balmer, 60). Unused subs: Leslie-Smith, Lindsay, Rees (g/k).