AFTER FA Trophy victories at the weekend, Warrington Town and Warrington Rylands turn their attentions back to the bread and butter this evening.
Both sides are in Northern Premier League Premier Division action as they look to continue their promising recent form.
Rylands could climb into the play-off places if they extend their unbeaten run to seven matches when they visit Lancaster City for their fourth consecutive away fixture.
Jody Banim’s side sit eighth but are just a point outside the all-important top five as some key figures start to return to contention.
Blues will hope new signing Sean Cooke, who joined from Nantwich Town last week, will be fit to make his debut but there is bad news on defender Josh Langley, who is set to miss the remainder of the season with a serious knee injury.
“We’ve brought Sean Cooke in but he’s carrying a bit of a hamstring strain at the moment,” Banim said.
“Charlie Doyle isn’t far off, Aaron Morris isn’t that far off either. Josh Langley has unfortunately done his ACL so he will miss the rest of the season.
“There may be a bit of movement at centre-back just to cover that but other than that, I think we’re good.
“Harry Pratt has come back in after having a chest infection, but I’m really pleased with what we’ve got.”
Hosts Lancaster are struggling in 19th having won just one of their 10 league games this season but they did win impressively at Morpeth Town in the FA Trophy at the weekend.
Closer to home, Town welcome Gainsborough Trinity to Cantilever Park for their third consecutive league home fixture.
Their 2-1 Trophy win at Hebburn Town on Saturday made it three matches unbeaten for Mark Beesley’s men and extending that will put them in the top half of the table – they currently sit 12th on 16 points from 11 games.
However, their injury worries are starting to mount up – already without key marksman Jordan Buckley (ankle), fellow forwards Isaac Buckley-Ricketts (appendix) and Mikey Howard (knee) look set to join him on the sidelines.
Defender Tom Hannigan and midfielder Stefan Mols are also struggling with knocks – the former missed Saturday’s game while the latter was an unused substitute – while Bohan Dixon starts a three-game suspension following his red card in last week’s Warrington derby.
“We’ve had some bad news with a couple of players,” manager Beesley said.
“Isaac has been in hospital having an appendix operation and Mikey had an incident in training which doesn’t look good.
“He’s going to have a scan and hopefully the results will be favourable, but it doesn’t look good at the moment.
“Stef was on the bench with the idea of him being able to step on and take a penalty if it went to a shoot-out.
“He’s injured as well and we’ll just have to see how he is, Tom Hannigan as well.”
Gainsborough may sit 16th in the table but they have lost just once in the league this season and are unbeaten away from home this season.
Kick off for both games is at 7.45pm.
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