Luke Garrard believes victory over St Albans City in the FA Cup can provide a springboard for the remainder Boreham Wood’s season.

The Wood travel to Clarence Park on Saturday for the local showdown hoping to book a place in the first round proper of football’s oldest club knockout competition.

A solid start to the season has seen Wood take 22 points from their 15 National League games and they currently sit two points off the play-offs.

Garrard believes victory in the FA Cup will only help Wood’s league form and he is eager to win on Saturday.

“I have emphasised how important the FA Cup game is,” Garrard told the Boreham Wood website.

“I don’t want to build it up in any way, shape or form, but the players need to know there needs to be focus.

“I want to get to the first round proper and I want to bring a crowd in. If we can get people behind us we can kick on for the rest of the season.

“We are two points off sixth and six off top spot, so you can say there are positives going into FA Cup weekend, but I believe this group is better than what we are showing at the moment.”

With City playing in the National League South, Wood will go into the game as favourites to progress.

They will, however, have to be wary of a City side which has found its form in recent weeks and are joint top of the table, having lost just twice this season.

Wood, meanwhile, come into the match on the back of a slightly disappointing draw against Halifax Town.

Garrad’s men took the lead with just eight minutes on the clock as Bruno Andrade showed great initiative to score.

The striker lined up a free-kick on the right and caught the Town keeper off guard at his near post to put Wood ahead.

However, Halifax hit back with 10 minutes to play as a long ball forward caught the Wood defence out.

Matty Kosylo was a nuisance throughout and it was he who raced clear to force Grant Smith into a fine low stop.

The keeper’s save fell invitingly for Adam Morgan, who turned into an empty net to ensure the spoils were split among the sides.

A fiery game also saw Halifax reduced to 10-men as Tom Denton was given his marching orders for two bookable offences.

Garrad praised the manner in which his side started the game, but was critical of their failure to sustain their performance throughout the 90 minutes.

“I saw the equaliser coming. I felt it was a matter of time for them to score,” he said.

“For the first 10 or 15 minutes we were bright and got the goal. It was a bit of quality from Bruno and he has seen the gap.

“It is so frustrating that for 15 minutes today we put in a performance and we were nice and bright, got the ball playing, yet we went to sleep.”

After fulfilling their FA Cup commitments, Wood will return to league action the following Saturday.

Their league schedule sees them travel to Chester where they will be confident of getting a positive result.

Chester are 21st in the table and have picked up only two wins this season to leave themselves five points off the foot of the table.