CLUB captain Danny Livesey feels Barrow AFC have shown they belong among the Conference contenders ahead of tomorrow’s clash with Cheltenham Town.

The Bluebirds have earned draws against play-off hopefuls Woking and Gateshead in their last two games and now face one of the teams pushing for the title (3pm kick-off).

The Robins come to Holker Street unbeaten in league action since September and sitting second in the table, with a game in hand on narrow leaders Forest Green Rovers.

But Livesey believes Barrow can take confidence from their recent displays, and said: “Gateshead and Woking are one or two points off the play-offs and we haven’t looked out of place, we haven’t looked like we don’t belong playing against them.

“That’s what we’ve got to take confidence from. It’s where we’re aiming to be, especially next year.

“They have just been more consistent and it’s obvious that is where we have been going wrong, but we haven’t been outplayed by these sides.

“That has given us a boost, a little bit of belief that we can compete in this league and we should be higher than we are.”

He added: “We just needed to put a little bit of a run together. We were winning one, losing one, drawing then losing, and you just need a little bit of consistency, just so you have that confidence.

“It feels like that’s the way we are going at the moment. I know it didn’t look pretty on Tuesday, but it was a bit of a farce and it was ruined by the weather, but maybe we would have lost that game a couple of weeks ago. It was nice to come away with a point, even though it was probably a terrible game to watch – it wasn’t much better to play in.”

Livesey saw Barrow fall to a 2-1 defeat at Cheltenham in August, when he was forced to leave the field injured after an hour.

Barrow were leading that match 1-0 going into the closing stages, but were unable to hold on.

The Bluebirds centre-back is hopeful they can rectify that tomorrow, and said: “You want to compete against the best in the league and, at the minute, they are right up there. They are very efficient and effective at what they do.

“We know it is going to be tough, but we are looking forward to it. We’ve got quite a good home record and we want to keep that going. It will be nice to test ourselves against the best teams.

“When we went down there, we were winning 1-0 with 10 minutes to go and we maybe should have held out for the win, or at least a draw.

“Hopefully we have learnt stuff from early on in the season and we will see where we’re at.”