JAMIE Gleeson has been around football long enough to know that one positive result can act as a catalyst for change at a club going through tough times.

And the experienced Magpies’ midfielder is eager for the Boxing Day derby against Weymouth to be the fixture that gets things moving in the right direction at the Avenue.

“We look forward to every game and this one is exactly the same,” he said. “I’m up for it and I’m sure the rest of the lads are as well.

“And if you can’t get up for a game like this you might as well not bother.

“Weymouth are going to be hard to stop because they’re in form.

“But I think that when we are on our game we can win any match.

“We are on a bad run at the moment but form can turn on its head in local derbies.

“The pressure is not on us because people are expecting Dorchester to get turned over.

“We just need to start well and get on top, and if we do that it will get our heads up.

“Hopefully things will click and we can start winning a few games, but we’ve got to be upbeat about it if we want that to happen.”

The visit of the Terras to the county town on Friday precedes a trip to Poole for the Magpies on New Year’s Day.

Dorchester are clear second favourites for both games given their recent run of results.

But for Gleeson, a sequence of four successive Evo-Stik Southern Premier Division defeats doesn’t do justice to the quality in boss Graham Kemp’s squad.

He added: “The next few games are going to be tough but we just need to keep working hard.

“I still genuinely believe that on paper we are as good as any of the other sides in this league.

“I can’t put my finger on where we are going wrong at the moment, but we are not as bad as the results are showing.”