FOCUSED manager David Oldfield insisted his Weymouth side’s 1-0 victory over near rivals Dorchester Town was “almost irrelevant” ahead of the upcoming league season.

Oldfield directed Weymouth’s final pre-season outing in what was a largely dull friendly, out of keeping with the blood and guts usually seen in a Ridgeway derby.

Some 523 in attendance, supporters coming together on Dorset Fans Festival day, were starved of a shot on target until the 70th minute when Keelan O’Connell stung the palms of Dorchester keeper Harry Dillon.

Dorchester then brought on Harrison Bruton after Dillon was injured, Weymouth lending their sub keeper to the Magpies in a warm gesture in keeping with the occasion.

READ MORE: Weymouth 1-0 Dorchester Town - match report

Karma perhaps played its part for Weymouth, who had a goal ruled out for offside, as their trialist striker surged into the area before beating Bruton to score an 89th-minute winner.

Speaking post-match to the waiting media, Oldfield said: “The result doesn’t matter at all.

“We might’ve lost, drawn or won – it was irrelevant. We need to do better but there was lots of good things in there too.

“It isn’t the end of pre-season, we have very big training sessions coming up in front of us before the season starts and we need to be ready.

“A very difficult test (on Saturday). Dorchester are a good side, have some good players and their management are excellent. It’s an exciting time ahead of them this season, definitely.

“For us, it was a big challenge. In the end, we managed to nick it but it’s almost irrelevant.

“There were some good performances from us and we need to make sure we are doing more of the things that can bring us success and make sure we’re playing the right way.

“There’s lots to work on and lots of things we haven’t done yet that I think was apparent with set-piece play. We need to make sure we nail that down.”

Asked by Echosport what improvements he had in mind, Oldfield said: “We need to get more shots and crosses in. We had opportunities but didn’t grab them.

“Our final third action or stats would be quite low in terms of the opportunities we had, whether it was crosses behind the goal or (turning) down opportunities to shoot.

“We need to be a bit quicker and sharper in our minds.

“As a group, we need to make sure whatever we do – whether we’re high or low – we do it together.

“There’s lots of things to work on but we learnt a lot.”

Wrapping up with the positives, Oldfield said: “The main positives are that we’ve got through the game.

“We’ve picked up one or two little niggles we need to be careful of. We’ve learnt a lot more again about the trial boys and where decisions are going to need to be made.

“We’ve got one or two options I’m hoping will come across as well. Players have other fish to fry but we’ll see what happens. Decisions need to be made.

“It was another really good opportunity to get a close look at us.”