THE good news is, our ground has been given the thumbs up by the Football League. Now we just have to make sure the players fulfil their part of the bargain.

But any more performances like Tuesday night are out of the question if we are serious about promotion.

I'm not one to comply with the theory that going out of the FA Trophy is okay because it means we can concentrate on the league.

Of course winning the Conference is our number one target. But the attitude our players showed towards the FA Trophy really hurt John Coleman, myself and the rest of the management team.

The players know that in no uncertain terms because we kept them in the dressing room for half an hour after the replay at Worksop.

Perhaps there is a general apathy towards FA competitions in general around the country, because for Reading to rest EIGHT players on the same night in their FA Cup replay at Birmingham is startling.

A home tie in the quarter finals against a side three divisions below us was a real carrot for us we couldn't have asked for any more than that. But the total disrespect our players seemed to have for the Trophy was so disappointing.

The way Worksop celebrated after the penalty shoot-out proved how much they wanted to beat us. I can't help thinking that if we had managed to progress we'd have just walked straight into the dressing room without any fuss.

Worksop's attitude towards the game shone out like a beacon, and there are many more teams who will adopt similar determination against us before the season ends. Everyone wants to beat the league leaders, so we've got to rediscover our stomach for the fight to make sure they don't succeed. We could soon fall into a very dangerous trap if we don't.

Big players in our team went missing on Tuesday night, and we can't afford to let that happen again.

We got a good response after the getting knocked out of the FA Cup at Worcester and we need the players to do the same again now.

Showing remorse for Tuesday is important, but we also have to move on from that and get the win we desperately need at home to Dagenham and Redbridge on Saturday.