GUISELEY have been handed a major boost ahead of Saturday’s visit of high-flying Forest Green after loanees Adam Smith and James Hurst joined the club on a permanent basis.

Winger Smith and full back Hurst have both made their mark at Nethermoor after arriving in November from Wrexham and Torquay respectively.

The news that they have become fully-fledged Guiseley players has delighted boss Mark Bower, whose side picked up a creditable 1-1 draw at high-flying Grimsby last weekend.

Bower said: “We’re delighted to be able to make Adam and James permanent members of our squad.

“Both have demonstrated their qualities while with us on loan and I’m convinced they will continue to do that as we seek to preserve our Vanarama National League status.”

The Lions put in a highly-impressive display at Grimsby to secure a share of the spoils and end the Mariners’ six-game National League winning streak.

Third-placed Grimsby conceded their first league goal for 484 minutes when Ollie Norburn fired in from outside the box for Guiseley.

The hosts fought back to level through Padraig Amond's 17th league goal of the season from close range but for Bower the result served as a welcome antidote of the 3-0 defeat to Gateshead in their previous outing.

Bower said: “We wanted a reaction on the second-half performance at Gateshead.

“We obviously worked on a few things in training during the week and the lads stuck to the plan really well.

“The lads gave absolutely everything in challenging for tackles, headers and putting their bodies on the line.

“And they had to against who, as I’ve said before, I believe are the best team in the league.

“The chances they had were far and far between and the one goal they scored was a bit fortunate in that it deflected into the lad’s path right in front of goal.

“I was disappointed because I thought the lads had showed enough to get the victory but if you had offered me a point here after the Gateshead result then I wouldn’t have taken it.”

Attention now turns to Saturday’s visit of second-placed Forest Green and Bower is expecting another stern test.

The Lions’ squad was badly affected by illness and Bower will assess a handful of players who were sidelined for the Grimsby clash.

He said: “It has been a testing time with a difficult run of four away games in the league, but hopefully we can continue our decent home form starting this weekend.

“We’ve won four of our last five at home and if we are increase this gap between us and the bottom four then we need our home form to be good.

“It will be good to be at home again this weekend against Forest Green and we can certainly take a lot of confidence into the game.”