Barrow AFC will be looking to avoid being the victims of a shock in the FA Trophy when they face Atherton Collieries tomorrow and manager Ian Evatt is looking forward to the different challenge they’ll present.

The first round tie represents a fourth chance for Evatt to register his first win in a cup competition since taking charge last year and his National League leaders will go into the game as clear favourites against the Northern Premier League side.

However, the Colls have already defied the odds once in the competition, knocking out Boston United of the National League North in the third qualifying round and they’ll be fired up for what is something of a plum draw for them.

Unfortunately, spectators at Alder House have been deprived of the ‘Hardcastle Derby’ after Ben, the elder brother of AFC midfielder Lewis, left Atherton to join their former manager Michael Clegg at Ashton United.

Evatt said: “We’ve done our due diligence. We’ve spoken to people who’ve played against them and obviously we had an ‘insider’ with Lewis’ brother, who was there for a long time and has now moved on.

“He was able to give us a bit of a run-down on how they play and Lewis had been to see them a few times himself.

“We won’t be taking them lightly. We’ve been doing our homework, as is the case with all of our opponents, but we’ll concentrate on ourselves and if we can produce the performances we have been of late, then we’ll win the game.”

Barrow will be making the trip to Lancashire as the FA Trophy’s highest-ranked team and one of the in-form teams in the country, having won 13 of their last 15 league games.

Naturally, that means they’ll be taking to the field with the metaphorical target on their chest, with Atherton, 62 league places below them, viewing them as a scalp.

Evatt said: “Every week now we’re a scalp. As it stands, we are the highest-ranked team outside of the Football League and that puts a huge target on your back, but one we need to embrace and enjoy.

“We’ll just keep on going, keep on churning out results and I keep on saying that we can improve.

“We’ve got so much more improvement to come and once we do that, then we’ll have a good opportunity of reaching our goal, but we’re certainly not taking anything for granted and we won’t be taking Atherton for granted.”

Nonetheless, Evatt is using the tie as an opportunity to give other players in his squad a chance to impress, especially with his full group likely to be called upon during the busy Christmas schedule that follows.

“Olly Dyson has played a lot of games this season and he’ll be playing and the same goes for Jack [Hindle], who was top scorer for us last season, scoring a lot of goals,” Evatt said.

“The lads in the front three have been on fire, so they’ll have the opportunity to stake a claim, Byron Harrison is the same and there are other players as well.

“Morgan [Penfold] will come into the team, Matty Elsdon will be given an opportunity, Connor [Brown] is coming back into the team, so there are going to be plenty of opportunities for lads who have been on the fringes of things recently to stake a claim for getting into the league team.”