Glenn Howes keen to work with Dorchester Town on training ground

Howes, who moved from AFC Totton to take the vacant Magpies job last week, lost 2-0 to his former employers on debut.

The defeat knocked the Magpies out of the FA Trophy third qualifying round, but Howes has seen enough positives to work with.

No midweek fixture also affords the former Poole and Dorchester midfielder two training sessions to further impart his ideas and methods on the Magpies’ squad.

Howes told Echosport: “It’s nice, sometimes you need a reaction on the Tuesday and you can’t wait to get back on that grass.

“Because we’re so early in this project it’s nice to have the two sessions (today) and Thursday.

READ MORE: AFC Totton 2-0 Dorchester Town - match reaction

“We can really work on our (game) in possession and being a little more pragmatic at key moments, and affecting the players’ decision making.”

He added: “It comes from belief in what you’re doing. That’ll come from myself, James (Wood, assistant), Churchy (Brian Churchill, coach) and Dodge (Steve, goalkeeping coach).

“It’s just persevering and once you get those moments and take them, we can gain a lot of confidence from that and start to move forward.

“If we continue to produce throughout the game we’re going to be all right, that’s for sure.”

Howes also highlighted the boost given by the return of former Premier League midfielder Tom Soares, who was named captain on Saturday.

“Tom showed an awful lot of quality and composure,” Howes said.

“I don’t need to tell anybody what a good player Tom Soares is. We made the change because he hasn’t played for some time and his injury has been muscular.

“Of course, there’s that fatigue element. We wanted some more legs and that’s why we made the change, to protect Tom.”

Howes revealed he reserved a reunion with his former colleagues until after full-time.

He said: “We tried to focus on the game before the game and now we can relax, now the fixture’s out of the way.

“We can really focus on those league games coming up.”