The trip to Cheshire comes seven days after their 23-12 setback at Hull, a National Two North result that gave the Claro Road chief food for thought ahead of this weekend.

He knows the importance of the contest but feels his players shouldn’t feel nervous ahead of kick-off.

“I don’t want to be putting unnecessary pressure on the players,” he said.

“We want them to go out there and express themselves.

“We had a talk this week and we agreed that we’d rather lose going out and playing attacking rugby than falling away.

“We want to play good, entertaining rugby.

“That doesn’t mean throwing the ball away but we want to be positive when we go out there, I think we play better when we do that.

“Macc’ will be a much different prospect that Hull last week. It’s a big game we know that, we’ve still got to play Caldy twice and Macc’ twice, we’ve got four big games coming up.

“We seem to up our game against the big sides and that’s what we’ll be looking to do.”

Luckily for Aspinall and the rest of the ‘Gate management team, they have no fresh injury worries ahead of tomorrow’s trip.

On Saturday ‘Gate missed a chance to stay in touch with their near rivals at the top of the table after losing away at big-spending Hull.

The hosts' James Cameron tagged two penalties in the first half-hour as Harrogate struggled to get out of their own 22, but both had a player sent to the bin after 22 minutes following an altercation in the ruck.

Back in October Harrogate ran in a 52-11 victory over the East Yorkshiremen, and it was the visitors who claimed the first try when Mike Aspinall scored between the posts and converted to put 'Gate in the lead.

But Hull's Rob Devonshire crossed the whitewash just before the break and kicked the conversion to push Hull 13-7 ahead at half-time.

A Chris Murphy try put them further in front and Devonshire's second of the day from a close-range lineout drive effectively ended the contest, although Harrogate had the last word with a try from hooker Aarin Yorke, who barged over following a fine break from winger Steve Parsons.

“All in all it was a very pleasing performance,” added Aspinall.

“I was proud of the guys for the way they played against a Hull side who had a lot of ex-Premiership experience.

“It was disappointing not to come back with anything.

“But we battled hard and there were one or two positives we could take out of it.”

andrew.groves@ypn.co.uk

National Two NorthPPts

Loughborough Students 17 69

Macclesfield 16 66

Caldy 16 62

Harrogate 17 50

Fylde 16 46

Hull 18 45

Leicester Lions 16 43

Rugby Lions 18 42

Preston Grasshoppers 15 40

Westoe 16 40

Kendal 16 39

Hull Ionians 17 29

Broadstreet 17 29

Huddersfield 15 21

Bradford & Bingley 17 19

Waterloo 17 13