THERE is no danger of Barrow AFC having their eye off the ball as they come down from their FA Cup glory to take on Harrogate Town in the FA Trophy tomorrow.

Captain Danny Livesey is positive the Bluebirds will be fully-focused on their National League North hosts after a week in which they have beaten League One Bristol Rovers and been handed a third-round Cup tie with Rochdale (3pm kick-off).

Harrogate sit three divisions below both Rovers and Rochdale, but are sure to provide another stiff test for the long Barrow unbeaten run – which now stands at 22 games in all competitions.

The fixture is the first of four scheduled before the Rochdale match, and Livesey is confident that his team-mates will be concentrating completely on the test immediately in front of them, rather than thinking of their big January date.

“I think it has always been the way with this particular group of players, that they never seem to look very far ahead, they always look to the next game,” said the former Rochdale central defender, who spent three months on loan at Spotland from Bolton Wanderers at the start of his career in 2004.

“Even in training, if we have a Tuesday game then a Saturday game, we will always be fully-focused on the Tuesday game before we even start thinking about the Saturday game. I think this will be no different.

“We know what we need to do. We need to stay in that pack for as long as we can. If we lose focus, then that’s when we will struggle. That’s what we are, we’re a very organised team, we stay focused on each game and we tend not to get carried away. That’s how we’ve managed to go on such a run that we’re on.

“I think that’s the key – I don’t think that it’s an issue that we would get distracted by the FA Cup. We just seem to be enjoying the games at the minute, we’re just looking at the next game and trying to win that one.”

Livesey knows Harrogate will go into tomorrow’s match brimming with confidence following their 3-0 win at Salford City on Tuesday to reach the first round.

He is also aware they will be keen to be the side who bring a halt to AFC’s unbeaten streak – which stretches back almost four months to August 20 – and that Barrow will have to be at their best to get a result.

“Everyone wants to come and everyone wants to end the unbeaten record we are on,” he said. “Someone will – I have said this before, some will beat us. It’s up to us to keep the run going for as long as we can.

“It’s going to be a tough game. They had a great result against Salford.

“You’re going there and it’s on 3G, which brings its own problems – they’re a bit more used to it.

“We’ll go there, we’ll give our all and we’ll try to win it to get another cup run, and see where we can go in that competition as well.”

He added: “When we played them in the Conference North, they were a good footballing team. They had a little bit of bite up front and think they will be no different this weekend.

“I think it will be a really tough game. We’ll have to go into it fully prepared for what they are going to throw at us, and see what happens.”

Livesey has had some insight into the Harrogate camp before the FA Trophy draw was made, having played alongside Town man Paul Thirlwell for a long time at Carlisle United.

The pair speak regularly, and Thirlwell played in the win over Salford, and Livesey knows he and his North Yorkshire club-mates are starting to impress.

“I know one of the players, Paul Thirlwell, who I was at Carlisle with, and who was a manager for a brief spell,” said the Barrow captain. “He’s still trotting his old body out to play games and I speak to him quite often. He has been saying they were doing well, they had a few injuries of late, but those players are coming back, so they’re just starting to get into a little bit of form as well.”