DOMINIC Solanke believes Cherries’ pre-season exploits in the heat of south Spain will prove beneficial for the season ahead.

New boss Andoni Iraola’s first chance to get a proper luck at his whole squad came in a 10-day trip to Marbella, with Cherries facing Scottish side Hibernian and Israeli outfit Maccabi Tel Aviv in friendly encounters.

A 4-0 romp over Hibs was followed by a last-gasp defeat to Robbie Keane’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, with Solanke featuring in the first half of the 1-0 defeat.

Speaking to Cherries’ social media, Solanke shared: “It was really tough.

“Playing in this heat is definitely not easy, a lot different to England.

“It’s important that we got good minutes in, and I think playing in this heat will definitely help us.

“More minutes in the tank.”

Cherries returned to England on Monday, ahead of a third pre-season encounter against recently relegated Southampton next Tuesday.

Solanke felt that the hard work in Spain allowed the Cherries squad to get their time-off out of their systems.

“Especially when you’re away on camp like this, it’s very demanding, a lot of hard work gets done,” continued the one-time England international.

“It’s important, especially as we’ve just come back, to get the summer out of our systems and start getting back to the work.

“I think it’s been a really good trip.”

Discussing the first weeks of Iraola’s reign at Vitality Stadium, Solanke continued: “It’s been good. “Obviously we’ve had a change in manager, so we’ve been chatting with each other, still early days. “Still not 100 per cent, we’re working, learning every day and we’ve still got a lot of games left in pre-season to put that work in.

“We’ve got some games coming up, I’m sure there’ll be a lot of hard work on the training pitch as well. Looking forward to going back to the UK, with our families, and ready to go again.”