Barrow AFC certainly made themselves at home the last time they visited Wrexham and manager Ian Evatt believes the good surface at the Racecourse Ground could prove beneficial to his side again tomorrow.

After coming through pre-season largely unscathed, the Bluebirds will be getting their National League campaign under way against a team who are always expected to the there or thereabouts where the race for promotion is concerned.

Conditions are certainly set fairer than they were for last season’s equivalent fixture in March, where both teams had to adapt to the 50mph wind that was blowing across the pitch.

Evatt will definitely be hoping the line-up he picks against the Dragons manages to gel not just in the same way they did in that game, which AFC won 3-1, but also as they did in the first half of last week’s friendly against Sheffield United under-23s.

Evatt said: “Their pitch suits us, there’s no doubt about that, it suits us down to a ground.

“It’s a fantastic big stadium at a well-supported club and against the bigger teams last season we tended to have a good record.

“A lot of people are saying it’s a difficult first game, but I embrace that and think that the players embrace that.

“If we go there and show how good we are with the ball then we can hopefully hurt them when we attack and keep them out defensively.”

The first half in last season’s game led to arguably Barrow’s best performance of the campaign, as they opened up a 3-0 lead against one of the best defences in the division at a time when Wrexham were still very much in the hunt for automatic promotion.

As Evatt indicated, the Bluebirds made a habit of producing their best against the National League’s top sides, with Solihull Moors, Salford City and Eastleigh also being toppled over the course of the year.

Evatt said: “We showed what we are capable of at Wrexham, particularly in that first half. We showed that we can compete with the best and hopefully we can have a similar performance on Saturday.

“You never know where you’re at until your league kicks off - probably the end of August will be a good guide as to how we’re going to do.

“They normally saw that after ten games you get a sense of how good you’re going to be, so let’s hope that after ten games we’ll be showing some good form.”

A lack of a goalscorer ultimately held Wrexham back in the last campaign, with no Dragons player making it into double figures - their top scorers were Stuart Beavon and Shaun Pearson with just six goals each as they lost out to Eastleigh in the play-offs.

In an effort to rectify this, Wrexham manager Bryan Hughes has brought in former Grimsby forward JJ Hooper, while Devonte Redmond has arrived from Salford and Mark Harris has come in on loan from Cardiff.

Evatt said: “Wrexham are always going to be there of thereabouts, there’s no doubt about that with the size of the club they are.

“We are quietly confident as well, we want to fly under the radar and we want to be written off and hopefully come the end of the season we’ll be in that top seven.

“We want to test ourselves and see where we’re at because it’s as equally a difficult game for Wrexham as it is for us on Saturday, so let’s just see how we do”