DORCHESTER Town boss Callum Brooks expects his Magpies’ squad to have a “baseline” of fighting spirit in the quest to prevent relegation from Evo-Stik Southern Premier South.

Brooks has made the “immediate impact” he craved after following up a 2-2 draw at Farnborough with a stunning 7-1 demolition of injury-ravaged Merthyr on Tuesday night.

The results have lifted Dorchester into 15th, although the Magpies remain just three points above the drop zone.

Brooks also expressed his wish to see “passion and desire” from his players during Dorchester’s final eight league games.

He told Echosport: “There’s loads of fight in the camp. For me, that’s the baseline before we start talking about detailed tactics.

“The first thing for any team I’m responsible for is that I want to see a real energy, enthusiasm, passion and desire.

“We must outrun teams, we must outfight teams. If you do that, then all the nice things we talk about, like scoring great goals, breaking lines and going forward, that can come from there.

“I know we scored seven (on Tuesday) but really my focus was being hard to beat. I didn’t come to attack the life out of (Merthyr) and score seven.

“We came with a solid gameplan. I was well aware that a point would

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take us out of the relegation zone.

“It’s psychologically important to us and it psychologically dents our opponents who are down there.”

Centre-backs Brennan Camp and Joe Low were absent from the Magpies’ matchday squad in Wales, and Brooks shed light on the duo’s unavailability.

He said: “I spoke to Alan Connell from Bournemouth on Monday and Brennan’s not ready to play yet. He’s back running so I expect him to be with us on Saturday.

“Joe, I expect things to continue. I spoke to Bristol City and it’s just a case of he wasn’t available Saturday and I’ve kept the same squad in place plus added Nathan Walker.

“That was the 16 for (Merthyr), but going into the next eight games we’re going to need all our bodies in the squad and we’ll use them as we see fit.”

Midfielder Luke Winsper endured an eventful 30 minutes on the pitch, scoring the first goal before being replaced by Noah Keats after rolling an ankle.

There was also a first Dorchester appearance for Nathan Walker since the 2016/17 season as the Magpies’ talisman came on for fellow centre-back Callum Rose with an hour gone.