DORCHESTER Town know they will need to show plenty of fight on Boxing Day if they are to get anything from their clash with high-flying Eastleigh at the Avenue (3pm).

The Hampshire outfit sit second in the Skrill South table having only lost once in their last nine games in all competitions and suffered just two league defeats away from home this season.

And Dorchester’s plight isn’t made any easier with captain Mark Jermyn missing through suspension – his one-game ban was carried over from last Saturday’s postponed fixture at Farnborough.

However, after picking up eight points from the last 15 available to them, the Magpies, who always seem to lift their game against the top teams, certainly won’t fear the Spitfires.

Fraser Colmer is set to make his debut after joining on loan from Southampton, as is Clive Makoni, who sat out the 2-2 draw against Concord with a thigh problem.

With Jermyn suspended and both Harry Bell and Calvin Brooks on the road back from injury, manager Phil Simkin is likely to start Colmer at right-back and move Ryan Case into the centre of the defence alongside Steve Walker.

And although hopeful of picking up something from the game, the first of two meetings between the sides in less than a week, Simkin is under no illusions over the task at hand.

“Eastleigh are really tough cookies,” he said. “They have got a massive squad and some very good players.

“They’ve got Stuart Fleetwood on fire at the moment, but you never know, we often do better in games like these.

“We need to try and get something out of every game we play, and if we do that we stand a chance of staying up.

“But it’s a big blow not to have Mark Jermyn because you really need to be at your strongest against sides like Eastleigh.

“Because Fraser is so two-footed it gives me the option of putting Jake Smeeton in midfield, but Fraser has every chance of playing at right-back which will mean Ryan moving to centre-back.

“I don’t know what we are going to do for goals with Brandon Goodship going back to Bournemouth, but hopefully someone like Clive can show what he can do.”

Dorchester are one of four teams – Whitehawk, Maidenhead and Gosport being the others – at the foot of the table on 15 points.

Magpies: (from) Walker-Harris, Colmer, Case, Walker, Smeeton, Way, Lanahan, Gleeson, Crittenden, Wakefield, Twyford, Godfrey, Makoni, Tennant, Munday, Kennard, Michie