Harrogate Town must move on quickly from 'harsh' Carabao Cup loss to Preston North End

The Sulphurites served up an excellent display to get the better of League One Lincoln City in round one, but were four down by half-time when they entertained Championship Preston at Wetherby Road.

And although he says he doesn’t believe that his players performed anywhere near as badly as the score-line suggests, the Town boss insists that there is no point dwelling on that game.

“We just cleared the heads, we’ve had a good day off, rested up and Thursday was not going to be a big reflective exercise on this,” Weaver said. “We'd already talked about what we can actually take out of it.

"We had a discussion about one or two things, notably that we move forward straight away and think about Barrow and how we go about that.

"The mindset has to be switched on immediately. We can’t suffer a hangover from a cup defeat against very good opposition. We want to string wins together in League Two.

“I didn’t feel like I’d been on the end of a typical 5-0 defeat. I actually think the lads deserve a lot of credit for large parts of the game. I thought that we were spirited and we attempted to stick to the plan with the set-up.

“I don't think it [the score-line] fully reflected the game that I witnessed it in terms of, I don't think it was a bitterly disappointing display. I thought there were some bright sparks, I thought we stuck to the task.”

The introduction of summer signing Stephen Duke-McKenna as a second-half substitute added a bit of spark to Town’s attacking play, and Weaver was particularly pleased with the versatile forward’s impact from the bench.

As such, the Harrogate chief admitted that he has food for thought ahead of this weekend’s showdown with Barrow.

"I thought he added sparkle to it and he comes into our thoughts [for Saturday],” he added.

"We know he's got it, you know there's something there that we want to take care of and progress and, yeah, he's definitely got a lot of talent.

"He is in my thoughts. He trained well again on Thursday, I think he can entertain, I think he can give us something different. He is going to play a big role moving forwards.”

Barrow, who are under the stewardship of former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Stephen Clemence following Pete Wild’s close-season departure, currently sit fourth in the League Two standings.

They kicked-off 2024/25 with a 1-0 victory over Crewe Alexandra before losing out by the same score-line to local rivals Carlisle.

The Bluebirds would however bounce back in style last weekend, scoring four without reply in the second half as they thumped a Port Vale side who were playing in League One last term 4-0 at Holker Street.

On Tuesday, they held Championship Derby County to a goalless draw in the Carabao Cup before winning the resulting penalty shoot-out by a 4-3 score-line.

Saturday’s clash at the Exercise Stadium kicks-off at 3pm.