Boss Nathan Haslam hopeful Whitby Town can return to winning ways at Warrington Rylands

Coleby Shepherd is set to return to the Blues squad for Saturday's game at Warrington Rylands. PHOTO BY BRIAN MURFIELD

The Seasiders travel to the Hive Arena aiming to bounce back from their narrow 1-0 defeat at Worksop last Saturday, a below-bar performance from Haslam's men, writes Liam Ryder.

With Whitby currently situated in sixth place in the division, just outside the play-off places on goal difference alone, Haslam is targeting a strong performance in Cheshire as his side look to advance further up the league ladder.

The Town boss told The Whitby Gazette: "It's another tough test against another good team. They're in second on merit because they don't lose many games and they don't concede many goals. They've got some tricky players up front with plenty of pace.

Blues boss Nathan Haslam is hopeful his side can bounce back from their loss at Worksop Town. PHOTO BY BRIAN MURFIELD

"We look forward to games like this, it's what we're in it for. We'll go with a positive mindset and see where it takes us."

The Worksop Town reverse was the first time the Seasiders failed to score in a fixture in the entirety of the 2023/24 season so far, so they'll need to be at their best to get a result against their well-organised Rylands counterparts this weekend.

On the back of their first defeat of 2024, Haslam believes the setback has allowed his side the chance to show their character and true credentials of ending the campaign in the league's top five.

He added: "As a whole, we weren't ourselves last weekend. You could put that down to Worksop and how they played but you need players to really turn up in games like that but I think most of them just had an average day at the office.

"Everyone mostly did their jobs defensively but Worksop really made it hard for us to play the way we like to."

Ahead of the trip to Rylands, Haslam also issued an injury update after Coleby Shepherd made a return to the bench at Worksop last weekend.

On Shepherd, Haslam said: "I feel that Coleby's ready but we didn't want to risk him at Worksop playing on a 3G surface. He had a soft tissue injury but he's now done all of his rehab and he's come through with flying colours so he'll be ready for this Saturday."