DORCHESTER Town manager Craig Laird insists he would prefer his team to peak later in the campaign rather than show up well in pre-season.

The Magpies have had a mixed prelude to the season proper in terms of performance and results, but Laird is not concerned at present.

He told Echosport: “We want to play ourselves into form, we don’t want to be in-form and play (ourselves) out of form. We want to be improving as we go.

“We’ve got just under a fortnight to put things right. The first games of the season never really reflect the season, they’re really difficult to play in, so that’s what we’re preparing ourselves for.”

And the county town side’s boss feels that the final delivery is something that needs particular attention.

“We’re creating chances, we’re just not taking them and also the final ball at times is just not good enough, especially from wide areas.

“We’ve worked some good openings in some good crossing areas and we didn’t execute those well enough so that’s something we just need to nail down a bit more going into the season,” he said.

But despite the early teething problems, Laird believes the players are beginning to adapt to his system and style of play.

He said: “I think people are beginning to understand the system a bit better. There’s a lot more progression to be done on that, we’ve only just started.

“We’ve laid the seeds and foundations just for playing one way and we’ve got a lot more work to be done, that’ll carry on as the season carries on.”

Dorchester’s final pre-season game is at home to Evesham United tomorrow (7.45pm).