Chris Millington says Oldham Athletic pose a "terrifying prospect" in the race for the National League play-offs, but he believes his Halifax team will be ready for the challenge in the race for seventh spot.

The Shaymen are in pole position with a two-point advantage over Southend and Aldershot in eighth and ninth, and five points on Latics in 10th .

Halifax and Oldham still have six points to play for, and go head-to-head at Chesterfield tomorrow night (kick-off 7.45pm) in a clash that Latics need to win to still have something to play for on the final day.

"I've got a real strong affinity for Oldham, I've had two spells working there in the Academy and with the first team. I have some fantastic memories and I made some fantastic friends through my time at the club so I'm looking forward to it," said Halifax boss Millington.

"Since they came into the division we've got a pretty solid record against them, we know that they've got some fantastic individuals and you look at the team on paper and it scares you half to death. It's a terrifying prospect.

"But our lads are resilient, and they're gritty and they're determined, they work very hard and I don't think they get the credit for how good they are as footballers, so a stage like the one we've got on Thursday night against one of the league's big hitters is a great stage to demonstrate what a good team we are and what good footballers we've got.

"We've used the least number of players in the division so far this season. We've used 23 players.

"Every week we're either the youngest average aged starting XI or second youngest. So part of that is the learning, that ability to compose themselves. We come up against Oldham on Thursday night and they've got (James) Norwood up top. The reason he's such a prolific striker is because he's got that composure but that comes with experience. There's no shortage of ability in this group but they've got to have the experience to develop that aspect of the game."

Halifax have faced a fixture backlog at the end of the season and are having to fulfil four fixtures in the final week - with their home games relocated due to an unplayable surface at the Shay Stadium.

"Our big challenge, the thing we've got to really focus our energy on, is making sure we're as fresh as we possibly can be. Some players are going to have to play again on Thursday, some players are going to have to do Thursday and then follow it up on Saturday," said Millington, who worked with Pete Wild at Boundary Park.

He added that playing on superior surfaces had helped his players to cope with the congestion.

"If the Shay was available to us we'd play there because it's our home ground and we want to be in front of all of our fans," he said. "But it would have been impossible to roll out the smallest group of players in terms of the squad number in the division as many times as we have done in the last few days with another game to come on Thursday.

"Our biggest challenge is maintaining that freshness physically to be able to perform the way we need to perform. If we can do that, then we know the performances will be good enough to warrant the results we need."