DORCHESTER Town Reserves’ manager Rich Robson is keen to keep the pressure off his young squad ahead of Tuesday night’s John Stimpson Memorial Shield quarter-final against Salisbury Reserves (7.45pm).

The Magpies let a two-goal lead slip in the closing 10 minutes on Thursday’s Wyvern Challenge Cup semi-final with Petersfield Town, and Robson was frank in his assessment.

He said: “Up until 80 minutes I was chuffed. The lads did exactly what I’d asked them to, they stayed compact and Taylor Hibbs had nothing to do until that point.

“It was a real shame in that aspect, if we’d have taken our chances in that first half we could have been out of sight, but that’s how football goes.

“I can’t fault anyone for losing on penalties, but what I can fault is throwing it away in the

last 10 minutes, and that’s something we need to look at.

“We’re proud of our season, it’s the first time we’ve got to a semi-final in three or four years. I still think this bunch of lads deserve a final, and thankfully we’ve got another cup game coming up and we’ll go from there.”

Robson then went on to praise his players, tipping a number of them for big futures in the game.

He said: “I think there’s a good four or five in there who will push on in the coming seasons. They’re a very promising group of lads and probably the most promising which we’ve had in a little while.

“Hopefully they keep it going into the back-end of the season, take into into pre-season and push on to impress Craig Laird next year.”