DORCHESTER Town boss Steve Thompson is expecting the Magpies’ toughest game of pre-season to date when they line up against Torquay United at the Avenue Stadium tomorrow (3pm).

The fixture represents Torquay’s final warm-up game ahead of their National League South opener at Chelmsford City next Saturday, and is Dorchester’s penultimate game before hosting Metropolitan Police in their Southern Premier South curtain-raiser.

Consequently, Thompson is anticipating a strong Gulls starting XI, the Devon club having held on to its core of players despite being relegated from the National League last term.

He told Echosport: “I’ve said to the players it might be a step up (on Yeovil). People may think ‘how’s that a step up on Yeovil?’, but when you think about Torquay they’ll probably bring their first-team.

“They’re not really a National League South team, they’ve kept a lot of the players because they want to go straight back up and they think their best chance is this year.

“That’s tough and that will be a hard, strong team who are well versed in the arts of surviving in the National League.

“It’s not about results pre-season, it’s about testing yourself against different types of opposition and I think we’ll be up against a men’s team.

“I might be wrong, they may play five or six youngsters, but they’re getting very close – they start a week earlier. They’re getting to the point where they might want to play their starting team.”

Dorchester will again be without injured duo Aaron Rodriguez and Ollie Griggs, while striker Alex Stafie will miss the remainder of pre-season after returning to Romania for two weeks.

Since the 2-0 loss to Yeovil on Tuesday, the Magpies have announced Harry Kite and Dom Panesar-Dower as new signings, the latter extending his contract by a year.

On Panesar-Dower’s deal, Thompson added: “He’s worked hard in the summer, he has looked fit and strong in pre-season and hopefully it’s a very good signing for us.

“I’m sure he’ll want to play more games. He had a spell of illness and was out of contention for four or five weeks. He’s certainly started pre-season well, so hopefully he can do.”