The New Saints are out for revenge at Barry

Gavin Chesterfield’s side beat Saints 1-0 at Park Hall at the end of September, a result which, at the time, put them four points clear of Saints at the top of the table.

But Barry have since slipped to fourth and currently trail Scott Ruscoe’s table-toppers by five points.

TNS are a point clear of Connah’s Quay Nomads, with third-placed Bala Town three points adrift of the Oswestry-based team.

“It changes within a week,” said boss Ruscoe. "If you play two or three games in a week, you can either pick up points and take a bit of a lead, or you can drop off.

“Obviously, Barry have not been on a great run themselves.

“As soon as they’ve got the 1-0 victory here, it was talk about Barry Town winning the league and stuff like that.

"I remember Gav’s reaction to them saying ‘could you win the league?’ and, obviously, he wasn’t taking anything for granted or getting carried away.

“And that’s what happens. Within a month everything can change.

"We were third for a while, lost two games in a row, and everyone’s saying again ‘what’s happening at TNS?’

“But at the moment we’re in a nice position. To be top of the league, we haven't been for any long period of this season, so it’s very nice to be there.

“We’ve obviously all played 16 games now, so we’re all on an even keel and, from my point of view and what I’ll be telling the players, is can you stay there?

"Can you go on a run which puts everyone else looking around them and saying, OK, can we overtake TNS now rather than being in front of TNS and us looking up at them.”