BOSS Tom Killick saluted his side’s desire after Poole Town hauled themselves out of the bottom three in National South.

A 2-0 win over Chippenham Town thanks to goals from Mo Baghdadi and Warren Bentley earned Dolphins back-to-back league triumphs, having previously beaten Hemel Hempstead 1-0.

The latest victory saw Poole leapfrog Gloucester City in the table, who they visit in a crunch encounter on Saturday (3pm).

Killick told the Daily Echo: “Psychologically, I think it’s big to get out of the bottom three and put a team in there who we are now playing.

“Perhaps things have just changed a little bit in terms of how each side is, mentally.

“Travelling to Hemel we were really under a lot of pressure and the players responded by putting in the performance they did.

“Backing it up against Chippenham says a lot for the desire they have to get themselves out of this situation.

“As much as you talk about staying confident and believing in yourselves it’s hard when you are almost getting beaten every week.

“Suddenly this gives us something to cling on to in terms of confidence and belief, and that does take you an awful long way.”

Poole, who were without frontman Richard Gillespie, opened the scoring two minutes before the interval against the Bluebirds at Black Gold Stadium.

Having caused problems down the right throughout, Bristol Rovers loanee Baghdadi whipped in a ball on the angle which evaded everyone and fell into the net.

And while chances fell to Chippenham’s Andy Sandell and Matt Smith, Poole gave themselves some breathing space 19 minutes from time.

After Bentley was chopped down inside the area before pulling the trigger, he picked himself up to fire home the resulting spot-kick.

The victory was Poole’s second home league success of the campaign and put them on 27 points from as many games.

Killick added: “I think the players took a bit of confidence from having a slightly new approach.

“We have gone with two up front and been a little more direct. It might not be as easy on the eye as people would like but we just felt we couldn’t keep doing the same things and hoping for a different outcome.

“With it working well against Hemel it made them believe we could be effective playing that way, it was the same against Chippenham.

“It was always going to be more workmanlike than anything else because of the conditions but I thought on the balance of play we deserved to win the game.

“Getting the second goal when we did gave us a bit of a lift mentally and took the pressure off.”

Dolphins: Hutchings, Alawode-Williams, Aihevba, Spetch, Whisken, Moore, Baghdadi, Bedford (Dickson 61, Pettefer, 87), Bentley, Brooks, Balmer (Neale, 76). Subs not used: Gyebi, Rees (g/k).