GRAYS boss, Mark Stimson, is hoping his side can banish the memories of Friday night's controversial FA Cup loss to Mansfield when they host Altrincham at the Recreation Ground on Tuesday knowing a win will see them return to the top of the Conference table.

Stimson was furious at the refereeing decisions that contributed to his side's defeat at Mansfield and his weekend went from bad to worse when Accrington Stanley edged past tonight's opponents, Altrincham, the following day to knock the Blues from the top of table.

But, the Grays boss, is delighted that his side will have the chance to get rid of some of that frustration so quickly.

He said: "After a defeat you always want the next game to come quickly and fortunately for us it has this time. The boys were disappointed the other night but they understand it was not down to them that we lost the game and they want to get back to winning ways as soon as possible."

Having watched the 3-0 defeat to Mansfield on the TV, Stimson is still raging at the performance of referee, Trevor Kettle, who sent off full back Andy Sambrook within 10 minutes and awarded a dubious penalty to the home side shortly before half time.

"Watching it again makes it even harder to deal with because it clearly shows that both decisions were wrong. But we can take a lot of positives from the game because I thought the lads were fantastic after those two decisions and so did a lot of other people in football which is nice to hear."

But Grays weren't only counting the cost of defeat on the field on Friday night, the sending off of Sambrook and a booking for Stev Angus mean that both men look certain to be ruled out of tonight's game.

Angus has racked up five bookings this season and will definitely miss out meaning Nathan Koo-Boothe will return but Sambrook may be eligible if an appeal against his red card is successful.

Stimson said: "We won't know until a few hours before the game whether he will be out or not which is not ideal but Angus is definitely banned. That's a blow because with Jamie Stuart also suspended that means we are missing our two main centre backs, but we coped at Stevenage without them and we will have to cope again."