RADCLIFFE Borough boss Bill Prendergast wants all of his players to be screened for heart problems following the shock death of Shaw Lane's Daniel Wilkinson.

The 26-year-old defender collapsed following a suspected heart attack while playing in an Integro League Cup tie against Brighouse Town on Monday night.

All clubs in the Evo-Stik League will hold a minute's silence on Saturday, and the tribute will be particularly poignant at Boro, who host Scarborough Athletic, one of Wilkinson's former clubs.

"This is an absolute tragedy and my heart goes out to the player's family and everyone associated with Shaw Lane at this time," said Prendergast.

"We had a situation recently when one of my players suffered a badly broken leg, which was really traumatic for everyone, but for something like this to happen is hard to contemplate.

"As a manager, my duty is to protect my players as much as I can and I will be making sure the medical action plan we have in place here is practised again and again.

"We don't know exactly at this stage what has happened, whether Daniel's death could have been prevented with screening, but we have had enough warning signs in football to know that, as a club, it is our duty to act on this.

"I will be speaking to my chairman to find out what we can do to make sure our players are properly checked and screened and I hope other clubs do the same, so at least something good can come out of this tragic event."

Prendergast is eager to prepare his players properly on the pitch, as well as off it.

Boro have really started to hit their stride in recent weeks after a relatively slow start to the season following the manager's appointment in the summer.

They go into Saturday's match at home to Scarborough on the back of their first away win in the league, a 2-1 victory at Burscough, and have climbed up to 14th place in the Evo-Stik First Division North after claiming seven points from a possible nine.

Continue that good run against Scarborough, and at home to Kendal Town on Tuesday, and Boro will make a giant stride towards the play-off places.

But Prendergast is keen to stress that his players still have a lot to learn if they are to challenge at the top.

"We give the squad plenty of praise when they do well, but by no means are they the finished article," he said.

"We are still in the building phase after putting the team together in the summer.

"There is plenty to work on – we can do more to put away the chances we create and know we are always capable of letting in goals at the other end.

"The lads know they need to start keeping clean sheets if they want to succeed, but we are well aware this is the youngest squad of players in the country in non-league football, so there will be mistakes.

"A big thing we need to improve on is our communication. For one reason or another, it is taking too much time for the demands coming from the dugout in games to filter into what we are doing on the pitch.

"To get to the next stage of our development we have to work on that."