Poole Town vs Havant & Waterlooville – Match Preview
The Dolphins pretty much secured their play-off place with the very impressive 1-0 away win at inform Chertsey Town last Saturday. Only some remarkable results can prevent us taking our place in this season’s play-offs with Poole having 71 points and 6th placed Sholing on 65 points with two games to go.
As they had indicated after the Wimborne defeat, Pat Lea & Joe Suraci made four changes to the starting line up bringing in club captain Jamie Whisken, Josh McCormick, Ik Hill, and midfielder Charlie Davis. Those changes appeared to have been well justified as we left Chertsey with three points thanks to a first half strike from Billy Lowes.
We go into our final two fixtures just needing a single point to claim fourth place at least. The first of these matches is the visit of Havant & Waterlooville to Tatnam on Saturday ko 3pm.
When we played the reverse fixture at Westleigh Park in December, which we won 3-0, The Hawks were surprisingly in 21st position in the league, taking 15 points from their opening 16 matches. This was after finishing last season in 6thplace and missing out on the play-offs by just one point. They had a much better goal difference than Dorchester Town but that single point cost them dearly. They will finish the season in one of the places just below the play-offs as they are currently in 8th place (P40 W17 D7 L16 58 points) and come into the match on the back of a thrilling 3-3 draw at Plymouth Parkway. In that match they took a 2-0 lead into the half-time break but were trailing 3-2 after 62 minutes. Thankfully for The Hawks, Alfy Whittingham popped up with a 73rd minute equaliser.
We lost both matches against them last season, 1-0 at home and 2-1 away.
Following the sacking of Shaun North early in November, the club appointed Aaron Martin as the new first team manager. He has nearly 20 years of professional experience, having played for Championship and League One clubs including Southampton, Coventry, and Port Vale. His career features several standout moments such as achieving promotion with the Saints and playing for Port Vale at Wembley in the League Two play-off finals. Since being unveiled as Manager in Mid-November, he has taken charge of 29 First Team fixtures, with 15 wins, 5 draws and 9 defeats, scoring 60 and conceding 41 in that time and has recently signed a contract extension to 2028.
Leading scorer for The Hawks on 36, is Ryan Seager who came through the ranks at Southampton. He was released by the saints in 2019 and from there he went on to gain experience at many lower league clubs including Yeovil Town and Crewe Alexandra.
The club have put into place many attractions to celebrate School Voucher Day as the final match of the regular season at Tatnam. There will be Cheer Leaders, Face Painting, an Ice Cream Van and much more. There is bound to be a bumper crowd so come early to join in the fun.
Vice-Chairman Andrew Rossiter issued a rallying call on the club’s Facebook page this week “Boys will need everyone there, let’s get behind the boys let’s get the shed and the entire stadium rocking”.
Enjoy the game,
Neil Wellington.