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Andy Hessenthaler hopes Dover Athletic can cause FA Trophy upset at Stevenage Borough

Andy Hessenthaler
Andy Hessenthaler

Dover boss Andy Hessenthaler says he is quietly confident of causing a huge FA Trophy upset when he takes his side to Blue Square Premier leaders Stevenage this Saturday.

Dover’s three-game winning run was brought to an end by a 2-0 reverse at Woking on Saturday but the Dover boss saw enough in that performance to give him confidence ahead of the trip to the Broadhall Way, which he described as potentially the biggest game since he joined the club.

Hessenthaler said: "I was disappointed with the result on Saturday, but not with the performance. We will play much worse than that and win games.

"It is not often I can feel positive after a loss but we can go into our next game with a lot of confidence.

"Stevenage is a lovely game to be involved in. We go there without anyone giving us a chance but we are quietly confident.

"Over the last two-and-a-half years we have had nothing but expectation upon us so it will be nice to have roles reversed and no expectations on us at all.

"We have had a lot of big games, the promotion games over the past couple of seasons have been huge but this is one of the biggest since I’ve been at the club.

"It’s the chance to play against the top non-league team, a full-time team, with the prospect of Wembley, which is a big carrot. It also gives us the chance to see how far we’ve come and how far we have to go to get where we want to be."

Hessenthaler said Whites would work on nullifying Borough’s height advantage in training this week but he added: "We will just worry about ourselves and try to play our own game and cause them problems."

Olly Schulz will return while Dean Hill is back from a ban and played 74 minutes as a second-string Whites side lost 2-0 at Folkestone in the Kent Senior Cup second round on Tuesday night.

Hessenthaler revealed he is considering leaving Matt Fish at centre-half alongside Schulz and returning Nicky Southall to the midfield.

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