Stevenage boss Darren Sarll has been working on giving his side the psychological edge this week as they gear up to face Grimsby Town on Saturday.

Frozen pitches have limited the manager’s coaching time on the field as his squad have looked to put a poor performance in a 2-0 loss at Hartlepool United behind them.

He said: “I was disgusted with the performance Saturday, the players know.

“They were as disappointed as I was, it was a very quiet, sullen coach on the way back.

“We came in Sunday, we spoke long and hard about Saturday’s performance.

“That type of performance hasn’t occurred too often this season which makes us for a better points total for where we were last year, but we don’t accept it, it’s not acceptable to put in that type of performance as a Stevenage player.

“Everyone understood that quite clearly as 4,45pm on Saturday and very clearly at 8am on Sunday morning and we move on.”

Rebuilding confidence and getting his side to return to his way of playing has been the target.

Sarll said: “We wanted to make a big point this week of reminding the players what we are, what we have worked hard to be, how hard we had to work last time to get ourselves in and around that play-off zone and how hard we are going to have to work now.

“We have hardly been able to train because of the frost, so that’s been challenging.

“This week has been more theoretic and analytically based so that’s been a test.

“Physically the players are in great shape, great condition and we just wanted to make sure we pressed those emotional triggers to make sure that mentally they are firing.”

Grimsby head to the Lamex Stadium with one of the in-form strikers in the division.

Omar Bogle has hit 19 goals this term, including a hat-trick in a 5-2 win over Stevenage in August.

“Omar has done terrific from his journey from non-league into the pro game and he’s done terrific scoring 19 goals, but football is a team game and Omar Bogle is one man,” said Sarll when asked about the forward.

“We’ll just do our job as best we can, our job is to stop Grimsby not Omar Bogle.”