BOSS John Reed has set his sights high as his Harrogate Town side prepare to step into unchartered waters in the deep end.

Town kick off their first-ever Conference campaign in the new-look North division tomorrow at home to big-guns Barrow (ko 3pm) and, even though the Cumbrians will offer arguably the sternest of openers, Reed cannot hide his excitement at what lies ahead.

Reed said: "It's always exciting when you go into a new set-up, and this is a fantastic league and I think the quality will be amazing. The standards are improved and there are big clubs in there, and, although it's a tall order, I've said can we target the play-offs, and that's before we kick a ball."

He added: "Barrow are the favourites to take the title and so they don't come much bigger than this.

"They're one of five massive clubs in the division and if you asked the 24 managers in this league 24 would say they expect Barrow to be in the top three."

Reed, though, reckons Town's pre-season preparations have been spot-on and says they couldn't go into the game in better shape.

"We've had a superb pre-season," he enthused. "We started before anyone and we've worked fantastically hard. Games have more than gone to plan and really if you were a planning man you could not get it any better than we have.

"However, the proof in the pudding is tomorrow when there are three massive points at stake. Things could not have gone any better up to now but this is when the real battle starts.

"The two boys we've recently got from York City, Christian Fox and Leigh Wood, are fantastic signings for us and we hope their quality will push us a bit further than we otherwise would have been.

"We've also added Paul Shepherd from Leigh and he's a superb player as well, so we've added some massive strength recently."

Reed, who enters his fourth season at Wetherby Road operating with the biggest squad he's had at the club, includes all 21 of his available players in his provisional squad for tomorrow, injured duo Mark Smith and Michael Ord the only ones not included.

"There are very exciting times ahead," Reed added. "As a manager I'm looking forward to it with great anticipation. I've never managed at Conference level before and it's the first time for the club."

Updated: 11:36 Friday, August 13, 2004