Dave Challinor spoke to Chris Park after Tuesday night’s FA Trophy victory.

So Chally, a 4-0 win, into the last 16 of the FA Trophy thanks to a fantastic win over a team from a higher division.

That was probably as complete a performance as we’ve produced, not just all season, but since Colin and I have been at the club.  I thought from minute one we were fantastic and in the first half, in fairness we should have been out of sight and the game should have been over with what with the dominance we had.

But at 1-0 they’re still in the game and they changed a little bit in the second half, stopped us playing and pressed against us, but once we got to grips with that and got the goals that we deserved I don’t think 4-0 was a flattering score line really in comparison to the performance we produced.

I spoke to their manager before the game as the importance of this probably changed a little bit over the last few weeks.  When the draw was made we were sat second in the table, we hadn’t played Barrow but since then things have changed, the league’s moved on quickly in two or three weeks and now we’re sat in a great position and if I was asked what was the more important  result then last Saturday’s was without question.

Tonight was more of a bonus game for us but an opportunity of playing against a Conference Premier side and our players being able to show they’re up to that level.  Now, we know that in a one-off game we can compete but over the course of a season that’s a different challenge.  But it was a fantastic performance that had everything in terms of us keeping the ball, us passing it, us creating opportunities, us defending well against a team that were on the back of a 4-0 win at Wrexham.  So it was a great night, a great performance and we look forward to Saturday’s game.

Do you think this result will raise a few eyebrows across the Conference?

Some people may look at this result and say that it’s a statement and a big win for us.  But it’s a win first and foremost and it was a very good performance and we’ve shown that we can compete at that level.  But like I said that’s just one game and over the course of a 40 plus game season it’s difficult to find them levels week in, week out.

However, it’s somewhere we want to test ourselves and higher than that.  We’ve got a young group who we’ve put together and I believe they’re good enough players to play higher than what they play currently.  At the minute, as a group, they’re showing that but there’s still lots of work to do.

And now we’re in the last 16 of a great competition which, admittedly, wasn’t massively high on the agenda but again we look forward to Saturday’s game now and go into it with no fear.  We’re in great form and playing with bags and bags of confidence and we’ve got a fully fit squad at a great time of the season.

This was Mike Barnes’ first start since October and he was given the man of the match award by BBC Radio Lancashire and BBC Radio Shropshire.  It didn’t look like he’d missed any football did it?

Yeah, it was always the plan to play Barnesy whenever this game was played.  Similarly Boothy had a little bit of a knock so we made a change there but we always planned to use this game to get people back.

Blinks is a little bit different in the fact that he’s been out for four months or more and he’s down at St George’s Park so it’s probably come just too soon for him.  But, like I said, the plan was always to get Barnesy as many minutes as possible.

We’d probably only realistically aimed to have played him for around 60 minutes and we’ve managed to get 80 out of him so that’s brilliant and it’ll only take him a couple of 90 minutes to get himself back.  This game would have been a real test for him as he saw pretty much all of the ball in the first half so he was blowing a little bit after half an hour but it’ll do him the world of good.

If we can have a fully fit squad going into the last half of the season that will be fantastic for us, not only for competition for places but with lots and lots of quality.

Looking ahead, it’s FC United on Saturday, a team we know very well from the past couple of seasons, who are fighting for promotion from the NPL so on paper people may put Fylde as favourites wouldn’t you think?

It’s one of them, it’s a cup tie at the end of the day.  Obviously we go there and their fans back them fantastically to be fair and it will be a great atmosphere and a great game to play in for my lads and another chance to show people that we’ve improved individually and collectively as a group.

But ultimately the bigger picture for us is the league and I’m sure if you ask FC United the same question they’d say that themselves.  If you were guaranteed to play at Wembley in a cup final it may be a little different but there’s still a long way to go and it’s another game for us.  We’ve got to catch up a bit on league fixtures but it’s a game we can go and enjoy.

It’s a quick turnaround obviously but if we don’t take a lot from Tuesday night’s performance it’d be crazy really.

The link to the full videoed interview with Dave Challinor will be added here when uploaded to our YouTube channel.