PAUL Carden wants his Warrington Town side to be “meaner” to Nantwich Town in tomorrow night’s Evo-Stik Premier Division play-off semi-final.

After finishing the regular season in third place, Yellows have been paired with their Cheshire rivals in the end-of-season shake-up.

Nantwich finished a considerable 15 points behind Town but have had the Indian sign over them this year – Yellows have drawn one and lost one of their two meetings with them.

Looking further back, Warrington have not beaten Nantwich in their past eight meetings but Carden is confident they can reverse the trend at Cantilever Park.

To do that, he says his side need to start better than they have done in this year’s previous clashes with the Dabbers.

“Nantwich are always a tough side. Phil Parkinson was there last and had them well-drilled and now Dave Cooke is doing it his way,” he said.

“I like a lot of their players – they are good players at this level.

“We know each other well. We’ve had two tough games against them this season but they would probably say the same.

“I think we’ve been quite generous in the first half of both games against them and we can’t afford to do that again.

“They have got players who will punish us if we do, as they have shown.

“We need to make sure we’re a lot meaner when it comes to playing against them and giving them chances.

“At the same time, we have scored goals against them this season. We know how we can overcome their strengths.”

Town wrapped up their regular season campaign with a 2-2 draw at fellow play-off qualifiers Buxton on Saturday.

A much-changed Yellows team secured a share of the spoils thanks to Mark Roberts’ late equaliser.

Warrington Guardian:

Mark Roberts nods in the equaliser at Buxton on Saturday. Picture by John Hopkins

Liam Hardy had given the Bucks the lead again shortly after Bohan Dixon had cancelled out Jude Oyibo’s opener.

Carden made changes with Tuesday’s play-off game in mind and was pleased with how his side acquitted themselves.

“We made a lot of changes and that can disrupt the flow a little bit but I thought the lads who came in did well,” he said.

“The conditions were as bad as I’ve seen in April. Both sets of players were coming off shivering.

“It was strange because in both halves, the team going into the conditions played better. Buxton probably edged the first half and we edged the second.

“They had a good chance at 2-1 and we’ve had corner after corner in the second half.

“It was a reasonable performance against a side fighting to stay in the play-offs.”

Warrington Town vs Nantwich Town kicks off at 7.45pm tomorrow at Cantilever Park. Tickets are available on the door at £10 for adults, £6 for concessions and £2 for under 16s.

The match will be covered live on the Warrington Guardian website via our ‘Matchday Live’ text blogging service.