Grimsby Town manager Michael Jolley hopes the Mariners can do better in both boxes in Saturday’s Sky Bet League Two clash with Northampton Town at Blundell Park (3pm).

Town fell to a 4-1 defeat to Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park on Tuesday, despite Martyn Woolford’s equaliser just after the half-hour mark.

And Jolley was impressed with the Mariners’ general play, between both boxes, in the game despite the result.

Speaking on iFollow Mariners, he said: “I hear a lot of managers say ‘We’ve got to do better in both boxes,’ but in the end that is really what it was against Tranmere Rovers.

“Three set plays that we need to do better with, so we’re going to try and address that in the time between now and Saturday’s game.

“And we need to convert more of the good chances we created – I think we had two clear chances to score before Tranmere got their first goal and, in any game, the first goal is important.

“So converting our chances, and preventing them from scoring, clearly is a focus for us.”

Jolley hopes his side can rise to the challenge of facing Keith Curle’s physical and in-form side this weekend.

He said: “It’s going to be another tough match. They’ve won four games in a row, and they’ve got a really experienced manager at this level, and he’s got the team playing how he wants them to play.

“They’re probably one of the tallest teams in League Two, and are very strong on set plays, so we’ll need to be aware of that when we select our team.

“So it’ll be a tough challenge for us, but these are often the kinds of challenges that we like.

“We’ve risen to challenges before this season so it’s a game that we can look forward to, back in front of our fans at Blundell Park – hopefully they can get behind us, and we can have a good game!”

And the Town boss emphasised the importance of picking up points in games when his side aren’t at their best.

He said: “It’s a strange one because we’re consistently applying the same principles all of the time.

“It would be fair to say that we have had runs in both directions, positive and negative.

“The challenge for us is to achieve a level of consistency of performance, and hopefully that will smooth out the results.

“And I think we’ve made some progress with that, but clearly not enough yet, so we need to keep working towards more consistent performances that will hopefully yield better – more consistent – results.

“If we turned half of the games we’ve lost into draws that puts us in a far healthier position in the league table.

“When we play well we usually do well in the games. Our B performance – when we’re not at our fluent best or we’re not playing well – we need to be harder to beat in those circumstances.

“So that is part of the growth of the team – we need to be more resilient, and do better with that.”

The Town boss has no fresh injury concerns ahead of Saturday’s clash with the Cobblers.