Bury Town manager Cole Skuse believes players’ mental resolve will be key at home to Felixstowe & Walton United in Emirates FA Cup

Bury Town manager Cole Skuse believes his players’ mental resolve will be key to avoiding an early exit in the Emirates FA Cup when their promotion rivals Felixstowe & Walton United visit in the preliminary round tomorrow (3pm).

The blockbuster tie at the Getaway Cars Stadium comes after both sides made flying starts to their bid to bounce back from play-off heartache in the Pitching In Isthmian League North Division on Saturday.

While Stuart Boardley’s Seasiders underlined their intentions with a 6-1 home victory against newly-promoted Newmarket Town, Bury scored three unanswered second-half goals away at relegated Concord Rangers for a pleasing 3-0 victory.

Cemal Ramadan scored a 12-minute brace from the 66th minute to send the Blues on their way, first turning in the rebound from lively substitute Ollie Canfer’s shot and then going on to guide home a Ryan Jolland cross from close range. New centre-back Taylor Parr came off the bench to mark his debut with a goal by firing home a loose ball in the box in 89th minute.

Skuse, who was delighted to see his side’s patience rewarded in the second half and avoid the pitfalls of the opening day, is now hoping his players can get their mentality right for the first of three guaranteed meetings with Felixstowe.

Last season saw the Blues only pick up a point from the two fixtures, with a 3-0 defeat on the coast last August followed by a 3-3 draw at Ram Meadow on March 30 where they saw a 3-1 half-time lead slip away before only a late miss on the counter spared them another loss to their Suffolk rivals.

“For us it’s a case of having a sole focus on us,” said Skuse of the key to getting their name in the hat for the next round.

“Again, we’ll do our due diligence on Felixstowe and prep the best way we can for them.

“Ultimately, it boils down to that mentality. The physical fitness, you'll be able to dig deep enough for that because we're competitive athletes.

“But it's that mental endurance, that mental toughness when your body is starting to tire that you ensured you stay tuned in and stay focused, which we struggled with a little bit in the home fixture against Felixstowe last season.

“We said to go 3-1 at half-time to finish it 3-3, we undone ourselves by a little bit of switching off.

“For us, it's having that emphasis on us, but staying focused for the duration of the fixture and see what will come of that.”

With striker Luke Brown awaiting a scan on his back, former Lakenheath player Tom Thulborn made his competitive return from a broken leg and ankle ligament damage in his more natural position, up front alongside Ramadan on Saturday, having been utilised at left wing-back ahead of the injury.

Skuse said: “He’s come back in real good shape and we’ve probably done him a slight bit of disservice by playing him in the position that we'd done last season, but he'd done it so well that we stuck with it.

“He likes to play centrally, he is probably naturally a centre forward or a modern day number 10, so for him to play up front and to look as sharp as he did, and he has done throughout pre-season, is a huge positive for us as a group.”

Trying to score at the other end will be Bermuda international Willie Clemons, with the former Braintree Town and Stowmarket player having had an impressive pre-season trial at Bury, though he felt he could get more game-time elsewhere. He went on to open his Felixstowe account from the bench on Saturday.

But it seems the game has come too soon for Bury’s Ryan Horne (hamstring) to make his first appearance of the new campaign while fellow central midfielder Louis Henman-Mason (knee) is still some way away.

A bumper crowd is expected for the tie with 1,285 having watched the last meeting between the sides in west Suffolk.