PORTLAND United are out to end a six-game winless streak against Bournemouth Poppies tomorrow (3pm).

The Blues have not beaten the Victoria Park side since a 2-0 victory in February 2020 and have managed only two draws since.

While Portland have often finished higher than Poppies in the standings since then, they are chasing an elusive victory based on recent seasons.

And boss Kyle Critchell has already actively attempted to banish any thoughts his players might have of Poppies being a bogey team.

He told Echosport: “It’s an interesting statistic and something I didn’t actually know until training (on Tuesday).

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“One of the lads raised that they’d been a bogey side the last couple of years. I squashed that immediately.

“If that spreads across then that’s in their heads. We’ve just been really positive and broken down Poppies’ strengths and weaknesses.

“We believe we can get at them nice and early and can cause them trouble. We’ll focus on what we can do to win the game, rather than any past experiences against them.”

He added: “We do a lot of work on our physical bodies, it’s just trying sometimes to work on that mental side.

“That comes from the coaches to make sure that we put our players in the best mindset they can be with the information we deliver to them.

“We’ve done our homework and Josh Hickman (first-team coach) does a fantastic job in analysing, that will be delivered to them.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to work on our strategy to make sure we come away with another positive result. It’s another home game and we’re full of confidence.”

Portland were also drawn away to a fellow Step 5 side in Torpoint Athletic in the FA Vase main draw.

Lending his thoughts on that tie, Critchell said: “We’re just really excited to be in the first-round proper.

“We’re not focussing too much on the draw, we’ll go into that game full of confidence and we’ll go down there and attempt to win a football game.

“We’ll try and get some information on them, which I’ve already started doing, and we’ll make sure we’re fully prepared.

“But, what an exciting time. It’ll be a lovely trip down there, let’s enjoy and hopefully the trip back will be even better than the one on the way down!”

Portland are without Bailey Rowe, who left the club last week, but are working on bringing a new attacker into the squad.