Dover Athletic boss Andy Hessenthaler has been previewing his side’s National League road trip to AFC Halifax Town with KSN, although he began with a confession about their Emirates FA Cup exit last weekend.

Hessenthaler told us, “Have to admit that last Saturday at Bury was a bit tougher than I thought it would be, although we did have some good moments in the game and got into some good positions, and if we’d taken the early chances, the game could have been lot different. We had a couple of corners and I honestly think that we should have scored from one of them. We then went one nil down and had a great a chance one on one with the keeper….”

“So, we had our moments which could have changed their mindset, but we didn’t take our chances and their quality showed in the end. So credit to them – they were by far the better team on the day – showed they’ve only just come out of League One and are in decent form at the moment in League Two! You could see the difference in class in the end!!”

He went on, looking at this weekend’s game at Halifax: “We seem to be on the road a bit lately – it won’t be easy as they got a good result at Morecambe in the FA Cup, although I think their form in the League has dropped since the start of the season when they were doing very well.”

“We’ve done our homework on them – they’ve got some good individuals in their team. We’ve just got to take our performance against Maidenhead and the second half against Dagenham into this game and hopefully start a decent run of consistency which is the key.”

“They drew at Morecambe and so have a replay on Tuesday, and I’m pretty sure some of their players will have one eye on that, especially as the winners play AFC Wimbledon on TV.”

“Players say that they don’t, but I’ve been a player and know that some do, although come three o’clock on Saturday we’ll be the centre of their focus. We’ve got to make sure we do our job properly and if we can duplicate our last game and a half in the League – we’ve got to be difficult to play against, but it’s all about clean sheets. We’ve got to go to Yorkshire and keep a clean sheet as we’ll definitely create chances.”

Player wise is been a difficult week at Crabble. “Haven’t been able to get anyone in this week – it’s actually been quite difficult!” the boss said.

“Things are going against us in the position that we’re in. Perhaps being bottom of the table puts people off coming to play for us, but I don’t know! I’ve even today spoken to a League striker who’d sooner sit on the bench at his club rather than come and play from us. We can’t force them to come to us, but we’ve had a few targets now. But we’ll keep trying and trying is all we can do.”

There has been one exit however, but only for now, a temporary one.

“The Chairman and Connor Essam have come to an agreement that Connor’s gone on loan to Concord Rangers. He can still train twice a week for them and carry on with his new job, so fair play to the Chairman for getting that all sorted and in place so quickly!”

Asked about what lies ahead for Dover, Hessenthaler shrugged his shoulders and admitted, “I think coming back here is probably the biggest test that I’ve ever faced in football given the position that we’re in. But it’s what we’ve signed up for, as we knew when we signed and that adds up to the overall challenge.”

“But as a football manager or coach it’s what you get excited by, where you want to do that and achieve things and I believe the players and ambition that this club already has here, we can achieve the goal to stay in this division and go from there.  It’s a big challenge but an exciting one that carries on at Halifax on Saturday…”