POOLE Town manager Tom Killick admits his side made hard work of Welton Rovers, after they won 1-0 on Saturday to reach the FA Cup Preliminary Round.

Charlie Austen headed home a pinpoint Stuart Brown cross on 55 minutes to secure the Dolphins' passage.

The visitors had plenty of chances to run riot in Devon and Austen blasted a diving header against the crossbar on 25.

Big chances also came and went for Brown, Micky Hubbard and James Bailey-Pearce during the opening 45 minutes.

This left Killick feeling somewhat edgy on the Poole bench. But the Tatnam boss took plenty of positives from a sturdy defensive display from his charges.

Killick said: "The game was probably tenser for us than it should have been. We had a lot of chances and that was the frustrating thing about it.

"But, as has been the case in our previous games, we defended very well and they didn't really have an opportunity of any note. We had three or four before we scored but it was a workmanlike performance. The pleasing thing about it was that we did quite well defensively.

"We didn't ever look like we were going to concede a goal and it was just a question of when we could get our first."

Next up for the Dolphins in the competition is a home draw against another Devon outfit, Willand Rovers, on August 30.

Rovers finished third in last season's Toolstation Western League Premier Division. So Killick suspects his side will receive a much sterner test at Tatnam Farm in less than two weeks.

He added: "Willand are in the same league as Welton, which is the equivalent standard to us.

"Welton were a decent side - certainly no pushovers, so to beat them away from home was a pleasing result.

"But Willand finished third in their league behind Truro and Dawlish. It's quite a hard draw and we'll have to play well to win that game but we're at home and we have to take advantage."