FOR Warrington Town, assignments do not come much tougher.

Still smarting from their FA Cup exit at the hands of lower-ranked Marine at the weekend, they make the long trip to perennial promotion rivals South Shields tomorrow.

Determined to escape the Northern Premier League Premier Division, the Mariners have gone full-time – the only club in the league to have done so.

The 1st Cloud Arena is a ground Yellows have not lost at in three visits, but keeping that run going is a big ask.

Nevertheless, manager Paul Carden insists his side will be ready as they attempt to put their cup humbling behind them.

“We’re playing against a better opponent, on a better surface with a bigger crowd, against a side who haven’t lost in the league,” he said.

“We know we’re going to have to be on it. If we let our guard drop, lose focus and don’t do everything we can to be ready for Saturday both individually and as a team, we’re liable to come out on the wrong side of the result.

“We want to be ready and we will be ready.

“They set the marker for this league. They’re striving to climb, are ambitious and have built season after season.

“It’s a good test for us – we’ve always had good games against them.

“I like what they’re trying to do. People will talk about the finances there but it makes the league stronger.

“It’s better than having a league of clubs happy to plod along and be where they are.

“We’re an ambitious club ourselves although not at that same level just yet.

“They’ve been able to take a quicker approach but we’d always like to think we’ll give them a game.

“As much respect as we’ve got for them, I’d like to think they’ve got the same for us.”

Town have had a rare free midweek in order to prepare for the game, and Carden used his extra time to gather his players and rewatch the 3-0 loss that cost them their FA Cup spot.

It is the manager’s hope that seeing what went wrong will go a long way to ensuring it does not happen again.

“We’ve needed to look at things. The two defeats we’ve had in the league had a similar feel to Saturday, although Saturday was worse,” he said.

“It was important that on Tuesday that we raised what we had seen to the players so we could talk about them and question decisions on the pitch.

“I will always put myself to any defeat because we as a staff have to take responsibility as well. If you start pointing the finger and blaming things, you’ll never get to where you want to get to.

“We watched the video back and it was a video nasty.

“I’m not normally one to do that – I try to be positive with what we show the lads – but I think we needed a reset after that performance.

“We need to do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”