EASTLEIGH will be without February’s Vanarama Conference player-of-the-month Jai Reason for two mega-tough away assignments in the next eight days.

Jai Reason picked up his tenth booking of the season in the first half of Tuesday’s 2-2 home draw with Wrexham, triggering a two-match ban that rules him out for Grimsby Town tomorrow and Gateshead next Saturday (March 28).

The impending suspension was one reason Hill withdrew Reason at half-time on Tuesday and threw Dan Walker on for the second half.

The other was that Eastleigh were 2-1 down and he felt he had to tinker slightly with the shape of the team to heighten their chances of getting back into it.

“I could have kept things exactly the same and hoped, but I’m not that type of manager,” said Hill, who also replaced Craig McAllister with Brian Howard at half-time. “If I’d seen something, other than sheer endeavour, that gave me cause to think we could get back into it, I would have kept it as it was. But do you know what? I didn’t.

“Some of the football you see us play in training is frightening, but sometimes we get on the pitch and go direct for no good reason and I was disappointed how we just played hoof ball. I felt we needed to get hold of the football and pass it.

“Jai had been booked and one stray tackle or a bit of petulance would have got him sent off.

“It’s the second season running he’s got ten bookings.

“It’s a blow to lose any player and Jai does give us a bit of something different, but we have to be prepared to play without him and that also came into my thinking.”

Hill rang the defensive changes for Tuesday’s game, bringing in Jamie Turley for Joe Partington and Will Evans for Dan Spence.

It was the first time AFC Bournemouth loanee Partington had been left out and Hill reasoned: “Joe came to us having had a long time out injured and has played a lot of games in a short space of time. I felt it was right to change things around and I stand by that.

“We went one up and I still think that had we dealt early on with the attack that led to Wrexham’s equaliser, we’d have gone on and won the game. For me, we were proving too strong for them, but that goal set us back a bit and gave them impetus.”

Coming on the back of a 2-1 home defeat by league leaders Barnet, Tuesday’s draw – salvaged by James Constable’s late leveller from sub Howard’s pass - kept Eastleigh sixth, two points outside the play-offs and five shy of fourth-placed Grimsby who have won four and drawn one of their last five.

The Mariners triumphed 1-0 at the Silverlake in January and Hill recalled: “Our supporters were saying then that they were the best side in the league. But, if you’d seen us win at Bristol Rovers, people might have said we were the best team in the league.

“I’m not saying that, but the run of fixtures we’ve had would have been horrendous for anyone and yet we’ve won four and drawn one of the last six.

“This week we’ll have played Barnet, Wrexham and Grimsby. Enough said.”

Grimsby expect to be at full strength tomorrow with 15-goal top scorer Lennel John-Lewis set to return from a foot injury.

The Mariners want to generate a party atmosphere at Blundell Park and are offering fans a £2 discount on club scarves to fill the ground with as many as possible.