BACK in April, Worcester City left Gainsborough Trinity’s Northolme ground having seen their Blue Square Bet North play-off hopes finally ended.

Knowing nothing less than victory would do, Carl Heeley’s team could only manage a dramatic 2-2 draw after equalising twice through Tom Thorley and Greg Mills.

Tomorrow, they make the trip to Lincolnshire intent on continuing their unbeaten start to the new campaign and marking themselves out as play-off contenders once again.

The stakes may not be quite as high this time around, particularly with Trinity languishing in 17th but, after gleaning 12 points from the first six games, City will be desperate to lay down a marker.

Victory would be Worcester’s first on the road in four attempts but manager Heeley insists they will need to up their game against a side that only missed out on promotion last term to Nuneaton in the play-off final.

“They’ll be looking to go one better,” said the City boss, whose side drew 0-0 at Histon on Tuesday. “They’ve had a slow start to the season but everybody is capable of beating everybody.

“Take Histon, they got thumped at Altrincham last Saturday and put in, I thought, a very workmanlike, disciplined performance against us. That’s the league, you can’t take anything for granted and if you’re not right you’ll get beaten.

“We’ve not been at our best for a few games and I know that sounds silly because we’ve won a couple and drawn one but we’ve flattered to deceive a little bit and we’ve not been in top gear.

“But we’re not getting beaten and we know there’s a lot more to come so there’s a lot of positives to be taken from that.

“We’re not playing badly by any stretch and if we can just click and have bit more confidence and belief in our ability then we’re going to be a better team for it.

“There’s a lot of firepower in the division, there’s teams with the capabilities to score goals and we’re one of them but we’ve got to improve our performances collectively.”

Worcester will be hoping to have defensive midfielder Rob Elvins available again after a hip problem forced him to be replaced by Jay Denny for the Histon stalemate.

Shabir Khan is also out with a groin strain, the defender expected to be on the sidelines for another fortnight. Midfielder Matt Breeze completes his three-match ban for the red card he received in the 2-2 draw at Bradford Park Avenue.