HALSTEAD Town manager Mark McLean says his players should "go away and play tennis" if they don't feel confident for their FA Vase trip to Enfield Borough.

The Humbugs continued their excellent start to the Thurlow Nunn League division one south season with a 2-1 home win against Burnham Ramblers last weekend and McLean feels they should head to Enfield Borough for a first round qualifying tie feeling buoyant.

While the hosts are flying high at the top of Molten Spartan South Midlands League division one, Halstead are joint top of their league and their manager wants them to kick-start a run in the Vase with another strong performance.

He said: "With us not in the FA Cup this year, the Vase is one (knockout) competition we want to prioritise.

"We obviously want to do well in the League Cup and divisional cup, but we'd love to have a run in the Vase.

"Enfield Borough will be a tough side, though, as they're banging in goals and flying in their division, so we'll put a plan in place and go there and try to progress.

"But we should go there with confidence and if the players don't then they should go away and play tennis or something after how we've started the season.

"They have to be confident as we've had some very solid performances so far."

Tom Cook may be a doubt after a recurrence of a hamstring problem in the game against Burnham, while Nick Miller has an ongoing Achilles problem and James Regan, Chris Harris and Joe Morris are all still unavailable.

However, Jamie Baker and Jack Schelvis should both come back into the Halstead squad.

Halstead head into the Vase tie on the back of another good home display when they beat Burnham 2-1 thanks to goals from Kane Gilbert and Ben Morgan.

They had to come from behind to do that, though, and had to hold their nerve after a difficult period in the first half, during which they conceded, but McClean feels the way his players came back from that shows the strides forward they have made this year.

"I thought we started well in the first ten minutes but we then stopped playing and went direct," he added.

"We knew how they would come at us and the started to make the pitch narrow, which suited them and they got a foothold.

"We conceded and we deserved to concede in that period but I reminded them what they were there to do and I thought from then we dominated.

"Jack (Cherry) didn't have a save to make from then on and after we finished the half much more as we should have played throughout, we got the equaliser after half-time.

"I asked them to go out with a high tempo and the quick goal really settled us.

"I felt we deserved to win, but we should be making it easier than we did.

"We go to a lot of lengths to prepare so we know what we're coming up against and as a group we need to trust that.

"We'll always find a weakness in an opposition to exploit; we have to identify that and we have to use that because we will win games then.

"This group is better than the group we had last year and that was another game that I felt we would not have put away last year.

"There will always be flat periods in games and it's all about how they handle the negativity when it comes.

"We struggled at home last season, but we've now had three games and won two and drawn one so that's a good stat for us.

"Mentally there is a switch for us.

"We still have five boys who will be coming in and fighting for starts so I can only see us going from strength to strength.

"More of the boys know me and we are seeing the benefits of that as they really understand what they are doing now.

"We can tweak things during games and you saw that against Burnham but that wasn't so much the case last year.

"When we conceded a goal like we did in that game, we would have quickly let in another last year, but that's not happening now.

"What we really need to do at home now is to put four or five past someone.

"The players trust in what they are doing but that will really open the floodgates for them, I believe and we need to make our home a fortress."