Cool heads will prevail says Badgers boss

A bumper crowd is expected at Sandy Lane as Badgers visit rivals Worksop Town, and Ward doesn’t want anyone getting carried away in the heat of a derby clash.

“My focus will be on preparing them the same way as we do for any game,” he said.

“We’ll concentrate on our strengths and where we need to tighten up.”

“Derbies are high energy games with lots of emotion flying around, so it’s a case of trying to keep a lid on that and playing the game and not the occasion.”

Ward says he’s satisfied with Retford’s start to the NCEL Premier season, but wants to shore up at the back as they attempt to move into the top half of the table.

“We’ve been okay, we’ve looked fairly decent from an attacking point of view, we just need to tighten up defensively.”

“We’re a bit typical of a club at this level at this time of the season, finding it hard to get a settled side out with work commitments and holidays, but that should start to settle down over the next few weeks.”

Looking longer term, Ward sees no reason why Retford can’t be challenging at the business end of the table come the final stages of the 2014/15 season.

He told the Guardian: “If I’m going to enter a competition I’m going to try and win it.”

“If it was a game of budgets then we would be a bottom six side, but it’s not about that.”

“With the players I have in my squad I fully expect us to be in the top 10 and then where we go from there is a little bit of luck, avoiding injuries and bouncing back if we lose a bit of form.”

“Budgets don’t win leagues, and if we can get into the top 10 we’ll see where can get to after that.”