Harrogate Town can't afford to dwell on midweek disappointment ahead of visit of high-flying Northampton Town

Manager Simon Weaver is adamant that he and his players need to “draw a line under” that disappointing 4-1 defeat to the League Two leaders and prepare to “go again” ahead of the visit of Northampton – another of the division’s high-flyers – this weekend.

He said: “We’ve just got to forget about Tuesday, draw a line under it quickly and come in bright on Thursday after a day off on Wednesday. We can’t mope around. We’ve got to face up to it, we lost the game.

“But, I’ve said to the players ‘don’t dwell on it’. There are lessons again. Against good opposition we have been punished for errors but we move on.

“We just go again. The lads have to free up their brains in order to be able to go out and play with clarity out on the football pitch.

“What we’ve got to do is show strength as a group and come out fighting against Northampton.

“The league is very tight and I’d say we’re in a great position only being seven points off Northampton, who are second.”

As disappointed as he was to end up on the wrong end of such an emphatic scoreline in midweek, Weaver insists his players can still take some positives away from their attacking display against a side who he believes are certainties to be promoted, and urged them to try and roll with the punches.

“I don’t think the confidence should take too much of a blow,” he added. “Forest Green are a very good side, as I said before the game, I think they can run away with this league.

"You’ve got to take the positives when you can. There’s negatives that you must learn from, but there were positives. We could have scored four ourselves against a really strong back-line if we’d have taken our chances like they did.

“We can’t crumble after our first defeat in a while. We’ve got to keep our heads, it’s not all gonna be in a straight line, it’s not going to always be success. You have to learn your lessons and go again, this is sport.

“As I have said previously this season, I want us to be the best team in this league at bouncing back from disappointment with a positive reaction.”

Trailing 3-0, Town were booed off at half-time against Forest Green, and while Weaver understands why the home crowd reacted in the way that they did, he hopes that his players will have their full backing this Saturday.

“We’ve got a really tough game against Northampton where we want the supporters to get behind the lads,” he continued.

“We’ve let them down on Tuesday night but we’ve had some great moments recently, so hopefully we can all dust ourselves down and go again for the benefit of the club on Saturday.”

Kick-off at the EnviroVent Stadium on Saturday is at 3pm.