​Home games key for Skegness in play-off push

The Lilywhites were in cup action last weekend as they progressed to the last four of the League Cup, but go into Saturday’s game still in fourth place and six points clear of those outside the play-off places.

And boss Chris Rawlinson says he’s now determined to see his team cement that top five spot.

He said: “We’ve got eight league games and probably need to win a good chunk of them to get in the play-offs, although that depends on other teams winning lots of games as well.

"I want us to get to 60 points as soon as we possibly can and three of our next four games are at home so we need to hit that target quickly to then see what we need to get from the three away games and one home game that end the season.

"We need to get the job done against Mansfield. It won’t be easy as they gave us a right test in the two FA Cup games and the league game at their place which we won, but we’re at home, are starting to get players back so the squad will be stronger again, and we’ve got to make sure we do our job and not have to rely on other results.”​

Saturday’s cup win saw Skegness beat RC Warwick 1-0 thanks to Dec Johnson’s second-half winner, to set up a semi-final with Lincoln United on April 10.

Rawlinson said: “It was good to get the win after losing the two previous games – at Loughborough when we had ten men for a lot of the game and then having had seven players missing for the Boston cup game – as while we’re continuing to go all guns blazing in the league we want to keep on the hunt for some silverware.

"Warwick are a really good side and have only lost one game in a long period of time but we’re good at home and had a couple of players back, and I was really impressed.

"It showed how much difference having numbers back can make rather than making do with the bare eleven.

"We took the game to them in the first-half and deserved to get the goal after the break. Warwick threw the kitchen sink at us but we defended manfully and we were much more like ‘us’ than we had been in the previous games.”