BALTI Sports’ boss Marco Nott has stressed the need for his troops to be “defensively on point” against the attacking riches of Merley Cobham Sports in the Dorset Premier League tomorrow (2pm).

Merley have assembled an artillery of deadly forwards, with Matt Groves and last season’s league top-scorer Asa Phillips joined by the pace and goals of Nathan Saxby.

Former Holt striker Saxby adds to a Merley attack that amassed a staggering 135 goals in 32 games in the 2018-19 campaign – leading to Nott’s emphasis on a solid defence.

He told Echosport: “They’ve added Saxby and that gives them even more of a dimension going forward with his pace.

“It’s a difficult game going up there and they score a lot of goals. We need to tighten up because we’re conceding a lot of goals.

“If there’s ever a time we need to be defensively on point then (tomorrow) is it.”

But Nott is given encouragement by his side’s misleading 4-0 defeat at Hamworthy Rec last time out – a scoreline he felt was harsh.

He said: “The way we played that game we gained a bit of credit anyway.

“We didn’t feel like we’d been hammered and we gave them a right go.

“We’ve actually got an alright record (at Merley) but it’s going to be a really tough game because they won two cups last year.”

Sammy Nichols and Jack Drummond miss out while Danny Andrews (groin) and Ethan Devaney (knee) are doubts. However, Che Curran returns.