Southend United boss Rob Newman has his eye on an FA Cup hat-trick - starting with a win over tomorrow's first round Roots Hall visitors, Third Division leaders Hartlepool.

Kevin Maher -- back from one-match ban and likely to go straight into Rob Newman's starting line-up

Blues have made the third stage of the competition for the last two years, only to crash out at home to non-league Kingstonian and Second Division Tranmere Rovers.

And Newman is hoping his side can at least emulate the same progress, but on this occasion pull one of the Premiership big boys out of the hat.

"The FA Cup is very important to clubs like ourselves, not just for the prestige, but for the financial rewards," he said.

"We've reached the third round for the last two seasons and it would be great to do that again.

"But it was disappointing that we never got a Premiership club in the draw after getting that far. We went out to Kingstonian and Tranmere, which was a massive anti-climax when we had hoped to be playing somebody more glamorous.

"But the club still benefited as we had Roots Hall crowds of more than seven and eight thousand fans for both of those games.

"It would just be nice to be paired with an Arsenal or Manchester United if we do as well this time round."

And Newman said his team - who are 13th in Division Three, 12 points behind Hartlepool - should be confident of making the next stage.

"It will be difficult against Hartlepool, but you can't ask for more than home advantage," he added.

"We played Hartlepool here in the league a few weeks ago and even though we lost 1-0 we more than matched them for long spells and deserved something out of the game.

"On that occasion we were punished for making a sloppy mistake early in the match, but we will be ready tomorrow."

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Published Friday November 15, 2002

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