Tony Burman expects his Dartford side to excel on Boreham Wood's Premier League-standard pitch
Published: 07:57, 19 December 2017
Dartford boss Tony Burman wants his team to thrive on the playing surface in their FA Trophy first round replay at Boreham Wood on Tuesday.
The teams drew 1-1 at Princes Park on Saturday but Darts, who have visited testing surfaces at Poole and Hungerford in recent weeks, should enjoy playing at Wood.
Thanks to their link-up with Arsenal, Wood’s Meadow Park ground now has a million-pound Premier League-standard Desso pitch.
“I want to go and see the pitch, after the money they’ve spent on it,” said Burman.
“Hopefully our guys turn up and think we’re not going to play on a pitch like this again so it will help us. We’ll go there and enjoy ourselves. Their pitch as it’s not what we are used to playing on at this moment in time.
“Our pitch played excellent on Saturday but this will be something else for our guys to play on and I think it will suit a few of them.”
Burman could shuffle his pack having played the last 20 minutes of Saturday’s draw with 10 men.
“It was a tough task on Saturday and it will be a tough task on Tuesday,” he said.
“There may be some different faces, we will have to see. We know we’ve got a tough game and we’ve got to compete like we did on Saturday.
“I’m sure we will like the pitch. It’s going to be hard but we’ll see what we can do.
“I’d think the pair of us probably didn’t want to have the game but it didn’t come about whether we had extra-time and penalties (in the first game). With 10 men it was probably better that we didn’t.
“This time last year we played Dover in the FA Trophy. We drew here and went to Crabble and deservedly beat them.
“They were top of the form guide as well. Whether lightning strikes twice or not I don’t know but we’re going to go there and enjoy it.”
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Matthew Panting