"The main area we've got to better is consistency" - Assistant manager Cooper on Solihull, the Town squad and pushing for promotion

The duo thought they'd be preparing for a play-off semi-final at Barnet that weekend, with a place at Wembley at stake, but the 4-2 defeat to Solihull changed all that.

Instead, they met with chairman David Bosomworth at the Holiday Inn, Brighouse, where they stayed for five hours writing the first blueprint for the 2024-25 season.

"We spent the whole afternoon reviewing the season, speaking about our plans and getting a structure in place," says Cooper, about to enter his third season at Halifax.

"We worked on that for about ten days before we both went on our separate holidays, and we've been back at it ever since.

"It's a process you have to go though of hurt, but hopefully not one you go through too often.

"And we want to be better for the experience and go again.

"Negative experiences like that will stay with you.

"The skill is to try and use it in a way that motivates you to be better and to get us ready to keep going with how we want to achieve things.

"It was devastating. You have your plan, you have everything in place, we were a crossbar away from levelling the game, with momentum.

"But credit to Solihull, they got us on the counter and rightly deserved to go through.

"You then have that emptiness, no-one's at the training ground the next day, the phone stops ringing for a bit, everything's a bit more quiet."

Town falling 3-0 down after 38 minutes at Solihull was the last of several obstacles they had to overcome last season, and Cooper feels there is a sense of 'what if' about the campaign.

"A season that had everything really, a lot of highs in terms of performances and results," he says. "We had some really great moments.

"Ultimately, circumstances - not excuses - were beyond our control, which made it a real challenge in parts.

"We achieved the first part of the job, which was a play-off finish, which we really pushed for and we feel, with the group, was achievable.

"But the manner we achieved that, ultimately, despite the unbelievable effort of the lads and the staff behind-the-scenes, and the upheaval in the last period of the season, we were agonisingly short and it was a brutal way to finish.

"There were poor performances, the pitch, outgoings to contend with.

"But we finished with a real promise in how we were playing, and a style and an identity we'd like to take forward .

"When you look back now, and you're in that moment of getting in the play-offs, we'd loved to have been in there with a bit more freshness and preparation, which maybe left us a bit short.

"It was a bitter blow not to get through and have a shot at the bigger prize."

So starts another eight months of toil, tension and travelling up and down the country, all for that elusive promotion into the Football League.

"We are capable and we've beaten anyone and everyone on our day," says Cooper.

"Every game is a very difficult test, for different reasons.

"There's real variety in the type of teams the league throws up every year and it's relentless, the scheduling and the travel, there's a lot to it behind-the-scenes.

"It's a really tough league.

"The main challenge, and the main area we've got to better is consistency.

"Looking at the top seven clubs last season, each of them had a spell where they went four or five games without a win.

"But they were still able to pick up enough points to create a promotion charge.

"We will have poor performances and poor results, it's the nature of the industry, but you shouldn't be too high or low and there's opportunities in the next game to beat anyone.

"It's hard to back-up performances week-in, week-out, which maybe comes down to players and their contributions each game, or the staff because of how relentless it is.

"But I feel over the last two years, we've become more hardy and more knowledgable and have a better understanding of what it takes.

"It's a challenging league, probably one of the most difficult to get out of because there's always generally been a couple of clubs with big budgets or resources that have got out of the league, but also, ones that haven't had the biggest budgets but had really solid management and players and have been able to build towards getting out of the league.

"The likes of Chesterfield and Bromley, they've stuck to a plan and a method and they've got up.

"They've both shown what an excellent manager and time in the role can produce."

After that initial meeting with the chairman, Millington and Cooper set about fine tuning their squad, rather than the annual rebuild Town fans have become accustomed to.

"It's credit to Milly and the chairman really for having that longer-term vision and changing the structure a bit in terms of player contracts," Cooper says.

"It means less upheaval. We know the lads who'll potentially perform well for us over a period of time might leave and go into the Football League.

"But we have a lot of quality players who got their first taste of National League football (last season) that are under contract for another year or beyond, which was important.

"We're always working behind-the-scenes with a good network, obviously we have Gareth McClelland in the background with a databse of players, and we have our own network of contacts, to make sure we're ready when we get the green light on what's happening going forward.

"I'm really confident we can have a bright start because we've had less upheaval and we've been able to do more tactical work earlier.

"We've got good people in - hungry, young, athletic.

"We'll be the youngest squad I'd expect, by a considerable amount.

"Adam Senior, who was brought in on a January loan the season before last, has the most outfield appearances.

"But we've got a lot of quality, we're fit and raring to go."

Cooper wants The Shaymen to pick up where they left off from the back end of last season.

"Clearly there's other teams working hard at the moment that will stand in our way, but our style will be the one from the last 15 or so games of the season - more on the front-foot, more possession-based," he says.

"We know from the data we use that we were right up there in terms of possession, but also possession with a purpose, so we had more touches in the opposition box, we created more goalscoring opportunities in tha final part of the season when our style changed.

"The trade off with that is we are a bit more open, so we do look a bit more vulnerable from the stats in terms of opposition chances created.

"But it's a direction of travel for us, and that's what we've recruited for as well.

"There was a sticky period when we were in transition but it was something we were always planning to do, it was just a matter of getting the right moment and we felt the sale of Milli Alli was that right moment.

"We'd been through it in the early part of last season, about how we might look towards the end of the season when things had settled down.

"The manager has worked in a couple of roles in the league now, he knows the league, what it's like at the start and his method is to be really solid at the start, have a foundation to build from rather than to chase.

"That bore fruit and we played some really good stuff later in the season.

"Obviously for us, it's a results business and we earned a play-off spot, so in that sense, the plan worked.

"We were still up there with the best defensive records in the league, we scored more goals than the previous season and earned more points.

"There were many aspects that were better but we feel it's a platform to keep building from.

"Hopefully more pressing and energy at the top of the pitch. We know that one to 11 it's the responsibility of everybody.

"And the goals we've scored and the chances we've created in pre-season, we've had more bodies in the box in those moments than we've had previously.

"We want to commit more bodies forward but also keep the back door closed as best we can."

Without peaking on the opening day of the season at home to Barnet, Cooper wants Town to hit the ground running, and keep then going.

"I'm always wary of going too bold with predictions in pre-season but we've had a real clear plan from the start, we're approaching in a way we feel is right to be able to build towards the first game and beyond," he says.

"We've had minimal disruption in training and games, the software we use to analyse data for how far the players are running, top speeds and all sorts of other areas, that's great for us.

"Let's see where it lands us on that first gameday but things have been going really well and I'm pleased how the lads are gelling.

"It's a lively, energetic group and they've been doing a lot of the right things."

Despite all the limitations life at Town entails, which might have felt prohibatively restrictive immediately after that 4-2 defeat at Solihull, Cooper insists he and Millington retain the same hunger and belief to keep pushing for promotion.

"That was what the meeting was for, to look deep at it and look in each others' eyes and be really honest, and say 'what's it going to take, what's needed'," he says.

"We knew before we signed up that that's the infrastructure of the club.

"There's very clear lines of communication within the club, we know where the club is, how it sits, and that's what we work under.

"We're very aware what goes on in the industry at other clubs because we have contacts, friends and former colleagues working at other clubs, and there's huge challenges elsewhere.

"Other clubs that have dropped into our league have fallen straight through.

"For us, we knew we had time and we knew we could build.

"It was just making sure we were on the same page and that we learn lessons from previous seasons to challenge again and have the motivation to challenge again.

"There's no sob story from us, we're acutely aware what we've got to work with and we're a resourceful, committed, tight-knit group.

"I certainly felt towards the end of last season that the fans who approached us and spoke to us understand what it means to us and how much graft and sacrifice goes into working for the club.

"Ultimately, we represent them and we want to put out a team that they're proud of."