DORCHESTER Town must defend their way out of BetVictor Southern Premier South relegation trouble, boss Leigh Robinson insists.

In beating Wimborne 1-0 on Saturday, Robinson oversaw his first league win and clean sheet in eight games since joining the Magpies in early January.

Dorchester have conceded a league-high 81 goals in 32 games this season, but Robinson feels a tight defence is the best route to safety with 10 matches remaining.

He told Echosport: “I did say when I came in that in a relegation battle you cannot score your way out of trouble, you’ve got to defend your way out of trouble.

“The feeling in the last few weeks is that we’ve got to score at least three to get a point because we’ve been conceding too many goals.

“That’s not really down to the personnel, that’s because the confidence has been so low we’ve wanted to drop deep and defend our penalty area.

“We’ve been conceding goals from that because we’ve been inviting teams on.

“Whereas, 100 per cent moving forwards, we’ve got to change the whole team into a much more front foot team that’s happy to squeeze up and leave space in behind.

“And, ask teams if they’re good enough to find that space, rather than just dropping into ourselves and inviting teams on.”

He added: “In the time we’ve been here, whenever we’ve wanted to defend deep we’ve had a lot of problems because we’ve conceded and had no threat at the other end.

“In the couple of games, including against Weymouth where we’ve pushed up and played on the front foot, we’ve had more possession in the opposition’s half and created loads more chances.

“That again manifested itself (against Wimborne), we had quite a lot of chances to score more than one goal.

“We’re saying to the boys that’s got to be the blueprint going forward – we defend on the front foot, not the back foot which is causing problems.”

Dorchester next host Gosport in league action on Saturday (3pm).