EXCITED Trevor Senior is relishing the arrival of the new campaign – but has warned his players not to squander their excellent pre-season form.

Bridport have remained unbeaten throughout their summer programme and the manner of their performances has triggered a considerable amount of optimism at St Mary’s Field.

Victories over Westland Sports, Portland United, Sherborne Town and Trowbridge Town have been backed up by draws against Weymouth and Shaftesbury.

While boss Senior admits confidence could not be higher, he understands defeat in their Toolstation Western League Division One curtain-raiser at home to Bradford Town on Saturday (3pm) would undo that promising work.

He said: “Pre-season has gone as well as I could have hoped for with almost everyone coming through unscathed, but it will be forgotten if we don’t get a good start.

“In my first season with Reading, although we ended up getting promoted, we lost our first game at Blackpool having been unbeaten in pre-season.

“We need to keep our shape and our discipline and I will be stressing that to the players in training. I’m sure they will realise that competitive matches are much different to friendlies.

“Confidence is high and there’s a feel-good factor around the place. My biggest challenge is to pick a starting XI because I have got a squad of 14 that has a lot of quality.

“We haven’t lost at home since January and it would be nice to keep the run going, but we have a tough start against Bradford.

“They beat us twice last season and finished fourth. I’d settle for a point and if we can keep another clean sheet then that will be the very least we get.”

Goalkeeper Jamie Fry is the only squad member ruled out through injury but his replacement, Sam Filkins, will be determined to reproduce the form that has helped him keep four clean sheets in pre-season.

Matt Condliffe and Ryan Hayter missed the demolition of Trowbridge Town, but both will be available along with Ryan Dovell, who sustained a slight knock in that victory.

Senior believes the rationale behind facing teams of an equal standard to Bridport in friendlies has paid handsome dividends and will stand them in good stead.

And he also paid tribute to his unheralded defence, which has conceded just three goals all summer.

Senior added: “We have had more realistic tests this year. Weymouth and Sherborne Town were the only teams who play in a higher league than we do and we lost to neither of them.

“We have got players who can score goals but even though I was a striker, the pleasing thing for me is that we have looked very solid defensively.

“Defenders don’t often get the recognition that strikers do, but they have been excellent and the fact that we have kept four clean sheets in six games shows that.”

Bees (from): Filkins, A Symes, Condliffe, Lock, Hayter, Senior, C Clarke, J Symes, Watts, Legg, Dovell, Moors, Evans, Cummings.