BY the time Josh Gillies flung himself himself at an opposition player to block a certain goal midway through the first half it had become clear Darlington need a new manager.

A week on from the morale-boosting draw with Stockport County, when a good performance proved there is life in the post-Martin Gray era, Quakers were a long way second-best at Nuneaton Town.

They lost 2-1, the single-goal margin of defeat to a team that had been in equally poor form masking defensive frailties that at times threatened an embarrassing scoreline.

They were 1-0 down after eight minutes, their defence carved open repeatedly and only sheer determination prevented further goals before half-time.

Gillies’ block was the fourth example of a Quakers player putting in a last-ditch tackle to prevent a goal, Liam Marrs, Dom Collins and Adam Bartlett all coming the rescue too. That’s not including Collins’ numerous interceptions to cut out forward passes too.

Darlington were all over the shop, this was a team badly lacking organisation and structure.

Gary Brown and Phil Turnbull have lifted spirits while in temporary charge, two senior players who command the respect of players and supporters, but they would prefer to focus on playing, leaving a manager to dictate tactics and install some stability.

A new direction is required, someone with genuine authority rather than two caretaker player-managers.

“I think there as a bit of naivety. We’ve gone from one extreme to the other over the last two games,” admitted goalkeeper Bartlett, who was again the team’s man of the match.

“Under Martin it was structured and direct to a point. Since Browny and Phil have taken over they want to play a bit more. Maybe us players have taken that too literally.

“To play football you’ve got to spread as a back four, you’ve got to leave gaps, but there’s no understanding at this moment in time of when to do it and when to play it into the channel, but that would come with time.

“It’s going to be an interesting week to see who will come in manager-wise, and to find out how they want to do things and what their philosophy is.

“All the lads are looking forward to it.”

Seven days previously Nuneaton were beaten 6-3 by Blyth, two of their goals scored by striker Ashley Chambers and he made it 13 goals in all competitions this season with Saturday’s opener a team managed by former Quakers' striker Tommy Wright.

It was a simple move that caught Quakers off-guard, Jordan Nicholson playing a crucial weighted-pass ahead of Chambers and he tucked the ball beyond Bartlett.

From there Darlington did well to keep it at 1-0, unable to get out of their own half for spells and finally venturing forward with around 25 minutes gone.

They had a good spell, again playing patiently rather than lumping the ball forward, Gillies hitting the post from distance and Stephen Thompson bringing a save out of goalkeeper Dean Lyness.

“In the first ten minutes we should’ve turned them around more than we did. We made a few mistakes and let them in,” admitted Brown.

“They scored one and tried to get two or three but the lads were magnificent in terms of effort and work-rate.

“There’s the togetherness that we keep talking about and we were very resilient to stop it going to two or three-nil. Other teams could have been four or five down at half-time but we kept digging away at our task.

“Josh hit the post, although he did say it was always going away from goal.

“Thompson had a good strike from distance and the keeper made a good save, and there was a good block from a defender. So we had our chances as well.”

It became 2-0 two minutes into the second half, Nicholson volleying home after a corner.

There may have been a deflection on the effort to deceive Bartlett, but Nuneaton deserved their two-goal lead from which there was no coming back for Quakers.

Brown made changes, sending on Joe Wheatley for Tom Portas, and then Kevin Burgess went up front when he came on for Leon Scott, Quakers switching to three at the back.

Brown explained: “We consulted the lads on the bench, I looked to them for help. There were a few of us there, we talked about what we should change to.

“We stuck together and made those decisions.”

A sweet Wheatley strike sparked Lyness into action, but were it not for a Marrs goal-line clearance to deny Luke Trottman it would have been 3-0.

Instead, half-time substitute Dave Syers pulled back a goal deep into added on time, his heavily deflected shot deceiving Lyness to reward Quakers for their endeavour.

“I thought we deserved something out of the game purely based on the way we finished the halves,” added Brown.

“It’s been a learning curve for us. It was important that we didn’t go three or four down while chasing the game as that would’ve affected confidence going into the next game.”

The next game is at home to Bradford Park Avenue on Saturday, by which point Darlington should have made an appointment.