STUART Heath believes the Magpies must change their mentality if they want to avoid a second successive relegation.

The county town outfit took a lot of pride from their performance in their 6-5 defeat at St Neots last Saturday, but assistant-manager Heath insists they cannot be a side that “pats itself on the back when we lose games”.

And although he feels the players deserved more from the weekend’s thriller in Cambridgeshire, Heath, says Dorchester, who will be fielding a strong starting line-up for tonight’s special match against a Dorset Army XI at the Avenue to commemorate the centenary of World War One (7.45pm), have to stop conceding so many goals.

“As a defensive unit, we haven’t quite been as solid and compact as we would have liked,” he said.

“We have to become a side that is hard to break down or we are going to find results hard to come by.

“We’ve conceded four, five and six in too many away games this season.

“We showed for most of the game last Saturday that we can go at a team like St Neots and match them, but there are crucial periods when we need to be a bit stronger defensively.”

He continued: “We can’t be a team that pats itself on the back when we lose games. We did it quite a lot last season and a few times this season – I’m not sure it’s the right way to go.

“I think our mental approach has got to be a bit different, a bit more geared towards getting results rather than playing well.

“We seem to have turned things around slightly but we’ve got to stop shipping goals and be a lot tougher to beat.”