THERE’S nothing quite like a cup tie to take one’s mind off the trials and tribulations of a shaky league campaign and even though we have been handed one of the toughest draws we could have asked for, I’m actually rather looking forward to Friday’s game at home to Harrogate Town.

While recent results wouldn’t fill anyone with confidence that we could turn over what appears to be a pretty decent Harrogate side, there’s been enough evidence in the games to suggest that we could click pretty soon and secure a much-needed morale-boosting win.

If we forget about the Brackley Town result and performance (it’s easily done!), there have been snippets in the other games under Tommy Wright’s leadership to suggest we could at least keep Harrogate honest. In the games at Blyth and Kidderminster, we can argue with some authority that we shaded the first half in both games. The games might not have panned out as we ultimately hoped, but there were glimpses of what we could do. Meanwhile against Tamworth, we did everything but score. Playing without a central striker certainly didn’t help our chances although that was purely a challenge of circumstances with Nathan Cartman leaving before we could complete the deal for Reece Styche. I can’t help but wonder if with guy like Styche who leads the line we might have gotten over the line against the Lambs although allowing their star striker to line up against them would have been like turkeys voting for Christmas. It was never going to happen.

I’m looking forward to see how Styche links up with the rest of the team. Not a beanpole like Mark Beck but much more of a physical presence than Nathan Cartman, hopefully he will provide a happy medium with good movement, a bit of pace and most importantly an eye for goal. While we have been poor this season, a few more goals would have probably eased our pain and mitigate some of the individual errors that so regularly cost us points.

Although scoring goals has been a clear problem for us, I’m really hoping that our penchant for an individual error doesn’t come along to scupper yet another cup run. Unfortunately, Tommy has seen in all of his games the problems we have been blighted with this season. Each game has seen poor defending and slip ups that have ultimately been punished with goals. It might be too much to hope that we can cut these out against one of the best sides in the league but I really hope that if we do crash out on Friday night, ironically the horribly Americanised Black Friday, Harrogate will have earned it rather than cashing in on us generously giving goals away.

That said, I think with a centre forward leading our charge, if we can put in a similar level of performance to the one against Tamworth, we might just give our Yorkshire guests a fright and maybe even secure our place in the draw for the next round. At some point we’ve got to start believing in our team once again and I don’t see why it can’t be this Friday.