In the second of a two-part interview with the Courier’s FC Halifax Town reporter Tom Scargill, The Shaymen’s new manager John McGrath discusses the squad he has inherited, the club’s star players and pre-season.

Town boss John McGrath says he will hold discussions with his new squad over the coming days.

Addressing the futures of Halifax's star players Will Harris, Jay Turner-Cooke and Cody Johnson is set to be high on McGrath's to-do list.

And when asked about the chances of The Shaymen being able to hold onto their most prized assets, McGrath told the Courier: "I'm due to have conversations with the players over the next few days. We hope so.

"We want to build for the future. They're three talented young players, and we don't want to lose them.

"We want to build around that and build a football club that's progressive, and add to those players who did superbly well last season.

"They're only going to get better. They'll definitely suit how we'll play.

"Yes we want to keep them, and build around them."

McGrath holds a UEFA A Licence and says he is looking to do his Pro-Licence.

The 46-year-old says his team will be possession-based but extremely quick on the break.

"I want to play with pace, I want flying wingers, I want quick and powerful number nines," he said.

"If it's a big number nine then the ten's got to be quick.

"We play a mixture of 4-2-3-1 or if we play a back three, it'll be three, a box and then one, with wing-backs, who have to be quick and really athletic.

"I want to put a team on the pitch that the paying fans come in and go 'yeah, that's a Halifax Town team, that excites me, that gets me going' because ultimately I'm working with the boys five days a week and I want to be excited on the side.

"I don't want my team to not represent what I'm about, so we're going to be a really quick team on transitions."

Pre-season training will start on Tuesday, June 30.

"The season starts the first week in August so that would leave us around six, six-and-a-half weeks, which gives me, Pabs (Pablo Mills) and my staff plenty of time to prep and plan for pre-season," McGrath said.

The Shaymen have announced a pre-season friendly at home to Chesterfield on Tuesday, June 14.

"There's three or four pencilled in at home and another three or four away from home," McGrath said.

"I like to play a lot of games, there's no substitute for playing games of football and ultimately, we're gearing ourselves up to kick-off the season and the lads have to be ready and up to speed for that.

"But we've got some really good fixtures in place both home and away.

"I'm a big advocate for playing games of football. Long gone are the days where it's 10k runs and you don't see a ball for two weeks, those were my days unfortunately!"

On what will represent a successful season for The Shaymen, McGrath said: "It's difficult, finishing eighth last season in a division that's really, really strong and is only going to get stronger this year.

"You've got York and Rochdale out but you've got some really, really big teams coming back in and getting promoted from below.

"We'll set our targets internally. My attitude as a player has always been 'win every game'.

"We want to be competitive, we know that last season York and Rochdale got 100 plus points, which lends you to the thought-process of you should go up.

"We want to play entertaining football and be competitive, and we'll do it with a young squad.

"We'll have little bits of experience, I think we'll need four or five bits of experience, but it's too early to predict."