I’ve been asked what I’m expecting when we welcome Grimsby to the Deva on Saturday.

Put simply, I’m expecting a backlash.

Grimsby were beaten 4-0 on Tuesday night by another one of the Conference newboys FC Halifax Town.

They are a good side with some big players and there’s no doubt that Grimsby are a massive club.

And I’ve said all along that these are the games we want to be involved in.

We had some great times in the lower leagues and met some great people along the way.

But it’s about these games now and we have got to embrace it.

Macclesfield are another big club at this level and we should have been out of sight of them in the first half on Tuesday.

But once we conceded, we went within ourselves.

That is a confidence problem and something that happens when you are down at the bottom of the table.

But fair play to the lads because they gave it everything on Tuesday and defended resolutely.

Some people may say Macclesfield deserved something out of the game on the back of their second-half performance but, as I say, we really should’ve put the game to bed inside the opening 45 minutes.

Confidence is a major factor in football and there are a few young lads who are playing at this level for the first time.

They will find the confidence to start playing the ball out of defence rather than simply clearing the ball anywhere.

We played with a slightly different strategy in midweek because we wanted to get the crowd up for it and behind us.

We played a lot of the big lads and went for long throw-ins to try and create a lot of chances.

That is something we’ve not been doing.

Tuesday night brought an end to a rather eventful few days for us.

In all my time involved in football I have never, ever, seen anything like the scenes at Salisbury on Saturday.

I think we all stood there in sheer amazement when the parachutist landed on the pitch during the second half.

There were another four or five circling the ground and I was hoping someone would send a flare up there to get more down and have the game abandoned.

I’m joking, of course, but it was quite a surreal moment.