Skegness all set for big kick-off

The Lilywhites will head to Derbyshire on Saturday to take on Heanor Town, before then returning home to host Boston Town next Wednesday evening.

And in assessing how the summer has gone, Rawlinson says his team are now raring to go.

He said: “It’s been a case of so far, so good. Other than a bad half of the Ilkeston game, and not a great first-half against Nettleham, I’ve been really pleased with pre-season.

"But I’ve been in non-league management teams for 15 years now and have had pre-seasons where we’ve been sparkling and then lost the first four or five games, and also had pre-seasons where we’ve been awful and then got off to a really good start.

"So you can’t read too much into it. What I do know is that we’ve managed to transform ourselves into a much more attacking side and have been creating a lot of chances.

"Last year we were hard to beat but had to make sure we took a high proportion of our chances. Hopefully this year we’ll create a lot of chances and the question will be whether we can defend well enough to keep enough goals out.

"I’m over the moon with the signings we’ve been able to bring in – not all have been revealed yet but they will be this week. There’s a real intent about us this year but having said that, we’ve also lost a lot of very good and experienced footballers at this level, so while we’re a lot younger and have a lot more energy, we are a lot less experienced than we were before.”

Heanor finished tenth last season while Boston were seventh, so Rawlinson is ready for a tough start.

He added: “We’re looking forward to the challenge of Heanor and then Boston have had us on the racks over the last couple of seasons having beaten us in every game we’ve played against them, so hopefully we can change that and it’ll be a good early season local derby.”

That will then be followed by an FA Cup extra preliminary round tie at home to Newark Town on Saturday, August 3.​