CHRIS Turner believes a heavy schedule has hit his side's hopes of reaching the play-offs.

Pool stuttered to a 1-1 draw with Lincoln City on Tuesday night, a result which leaves them 11th in Division Three, seven points away from the top seven with just nine games to go.

And after playing nine games in four weeks, Turner, who has also had key men Gordon Watson and Tommy Widdrington sidelined during the busy period, puts the lacklustre display down to the heavy demands heaped on his overworked players.

"We've worked tremendously hard over the last six or seven weeks and there's has been very few games - if any - when you feel we have played badly,'' he said.

"Against Lincoln we didn't look as sharp as we have been and that's understandable because we have had a lot of matches in the last few weeks.''

Next week sees Pool have their first free midweek since mid-January and Turner admitted: "It will be nice to have a free week and some time available.

"When you hear your Wenger's and the like complaining about football they don't even think about the Third Division.

"It has been a hard slog, with a lot of travelling, and against Lincoln it showed in the sharpness of the players' performance.

"But to their credit they never stopped going, even when the crowd were having a bit of a go at them, and we got the goal back.

"That game the other night could easily have been lost.

"We weren't playing particularly well and went behind and could easily have got beaten.''

Turner is refusing to give up the play-off ghost and added: "If we had won at Kidderminster on Saturday then you could take a point, but we really needed to win.

"But then even if we had won it wouldn't have made that much difference because other teams around us all picked up points.''

Turner is ready to put new £30,000 recruit Eifion Williams in the squad for Saturday's must-win encounter with Bristol Rovers.

He said: "Eifion will bolster the attack and provide competition. He is a good team player and can score goals if he is given the chance.

"I'm sure he will play a part between now and the end of the season, but we have players out of contract at the end of the season and we don't want to be seaching for players.''

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