Another injury blow for Town

9:19am Wednesday 13th August 2008

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DORCHESTER boss Shaun Brooks has been hit with a double injury blow after Roy O'Brien limped off in last night's 0-0 draw with Basingstoke and Ivan Forbes was ruled out for the rest of the season.

Defender O'Brien, who has been in fine form for the Magpies since pre-season, picked up an ankle injury late in the game and now joins Forbes and Mark Jermyn on the sidelines.

Brooks is now waiting to learn the extent of his team captain's injury. He said: "Roy came down and twisted his ankle but we won't know the extent of it until it settles down in a day or so.

"It's unfortunate as Roy, once again, was absolutely superb."

The fact that the Magpies remain unbeaten from their opening two games, and sit ninth in the Blue Square South table, has somewhat been tarnished by the growing injury list.

Of Forbes' agony, Brooks added: "We're 99 per cent sure that he's ruptured his cruciate and his medial ligament so he'll be out for the season, which is a massive blow."

Last night's affair wasn't the most enthralling of encounters and Brooks is keen to see his side improve in the final third of the pitch.

He said: "I'm pleased with another clean sheet as two clean sheets in two games is excellent. I thought we defended really well but there's still a lot of work to do on the attacking side.

"We got better in the second half and in the last 15-20 minutes we played with a bit more tempo.

"Their keeper did make some saves and we probably just shaded the chances. But I don't think we really did enough to win the game.

"It's a new group of players at the club and we've been disrupted by injuries, particularly Ivan's, but we'll train hard and try to put things right for Saturday's game with St Albans. Overall a draw was a fair result and four out of six points is a decent start."

The county town side were denied a goal in the first half when Basingstoke keeper Ross Kitteridge was awarded a free-kick after jumping with Magpie Patrece Liburd just before the ball crossed the line.

Brooks added: "I thought that he had just jumped with the keeper. But you can't have any contact with keepers now so I wasn't surprised that it was ruled out."