Cherries: Francis focus is on Victoria Park positives (From Thisisdorset)

Cherries: Francis focus is on Victoria Park positives

7:00am Monday 13th February 2012 in Sport By Neil Perrett

SIMON Francis helped Cherries keep another clean sheet and then said he felt Lee Bradbury’s men had been the “more likely” team to break the deadlock at Hartlepool.

Francis played his part as Cherries followed up their 2-0 win over Exeter City in midweek by claiming a 0-0 draw at Victoria Park to remain eighth in League One.

The 26-year-old defender has helped Cherries steadily climb the table, featuring in seven wins and four draws since signing on loan at the start of November.

Francis, whose move from Charlton was made permanent last month, has only tasted defeat twice in 13 league games for Cherries – against Sheffield United and Chesterfield.

He said: “The manager summed it up when he came into the changing room after the game and said that it showed good spirit that we were disappointed not to come away with more.

“We said before the game that we were not one of those teams that would settle for a point. We thought we were good enough to win it. The way it panned out, we were probably more likely to nick something but I suppose 0-0 was a fair result.

“It was maybe similar at times to the Exeter game in the first half when they sat back and we had a lot of possession but didn’t break them down. Hartlepool are not a bad team and get a good crowd behind them. We just couldn’t get that final nail in the coffin to finish them off.”

A share of the spoils prevented Cherries from leapfrogging Carlisle and Stevenage as Bradbury’s men missed out on the chance to move into the top six.

Francis added: “It would have been great to have got into sixth place, even though other teams have got games in hand on us. A win would have put pressure on them to regain a play-off spot.

“We will keep plugging away and it was not a bad point. As a defender, the most important thing is to try to keep a clean sheet and then do what we can to try to win the game. It didn’t pan out like that but we have kept two clean sheets in our past two games.”