DORCHESTER Town have bolstered their ranks with the additions of AFC Bournemouth youngsters Callum Buckley and Mason Walsh on initial one-month loan deals.

Left-back Buckley and attacking midfielder Walsh, whose father is former Liverpool and Spurs striker Paul Walsh, trained with the Magpies last night and are expected to go into manager Phil Simkin’s starting XI for their game against Arlesey Town tomorrow (3pm).

Simkin told Echosport: “I am delighted to have them on board and I would like to thank our friends at Bournemouth for helping us again.

“They can offer us great quality, we had six lads from Bournemouth last year who were excellent and they were all top lads.

“Bournemouth produce them well and Stephen Purches does an excellent job with them.

“They are both first-year pros so they won’t have played at this level before but every lad that played with us last season went back a better player, and that’s why Bournemouth are keen to help us.

“Non-League football is a different animal, it is much more physical and toughens them up, it opens their eyes a little bit and it’s a great education for them.”

Skipper Nathan Walker will be unavailable for the first two games of the campaign, but brother Steve is set to return for the Magpies tomorrow.

And while boss Simkin admits his squad are slightly heading into the unknown on Saturday, he is quietly confident that his troops can emerge with a positive result.

“I have never enjoyed pre-season, now is the time to start and we need to start now,” he added.

“It’s a blow that Nathan is going to miss the first two games but he will be available for the following Saturday.

“We have two tough away games and it’s a bit of unknown territory for me in this league because I don’t know the managers and I don’t really know the players, so I am trying to collate as much information as possible.

“No games at this level are easy but we go there confident because we know we have a decent squad at this level.”

Magpies (from): Walker-Harris, S Walker, Smeeton, Hanger, Woodford, Crittenden, Gleeson, Smith, Brookes, Lanahan, Agbo, Joyce, Cann, Murphy, Buckley, Walsh