Ian Culverhouse will get to see what his fringe players can do on Saturday afternoon when the Linnets take a break from league football.

Lynn head to Kempston Rovers for a League Cup first round tie, with Culverhouse ready to give some game time to those who have been forced to sit and watch from the sidelines as the Linnets have stormed through the early stages of the season.

Culverhouse has had little need to change personnel: Lynn are second in the table after nine games and eight players – keeper Alex Street, defenders Frazer Blake-Tracy, Cameron Norman and Ryan Fryatt, midfielders Michael Clunan, Ryan Hawkins and Ryan Jarvis and leading scorer Craig Parker – have started every league game. It’s provided a stability to the Linnets, but Culverhouse needs his other squad players to be able to step in at a moment’s notice – which is why Saturday’s cup game is more important than its face value.

“It’s been a tough week for the lads with two games in four days, but they have conducted themselves brilliantly and we picked up six points, which was the sort of response I expected after back-to-back defeats,” said the Linnets boss. “The league cup gives me a chance to have a look at a few different things and get some minutes into a few of the boys who have sat patiently on the bench. I don’t want it to be a massive distraction for us, but we will want to win the game.”

Lynn were 3-0 home winners over Biggleswade in midweek with a trio of second-half goals quickly putting paid to an argument that they are a first-half team – having wiped the floor with last Saturday’s visitors Tiverton Town but failing to add to their half-time 2-0 lead. Three points is three points and Lynn’s game management was spot on, but Parker accepts the theory.

“When we are playing as well as we have done and we are two or three up the momentum of the game is inevitably going to slow because they (opponents) are going to have a spell in the game,” he said. “Half-time comes and there is a delay and as much as we try to keep pushing ourselves forward and try to keep ourselves up for it, the job has been done in the first half in a lot of the games. It’s important we perform in the second half as we have in the first.”