DARLINGTON boss Mick Tait will hand a swift recall to Barry Conlon this weekend after his side missed the big man's physical presence on Saturday.

The 12-goal target man missed the defeat at Southend through suspension, but will be back when relegation-threatened Shrewsbury visit Feethams.

"We didn't have Bazza to hit long balls into and get bits off at Southend," bemoaned Tait. "We missed him and it will be nice to have him back."

Tait knows the temporary loss of skipper Craig Liddle in the closing stages of the first half proved to be their undoing.

Quakers conceded two goals while Liddle was off the pitch having stitches inserted in a cut and he said: "We should have worked harder with ten men but we didn't and we were made to pay for it.

"It was disappointing not to come away with anything, especially after our last couple of results. I don't think we played any worse than we did against Scunthorpe and Bury.

"We just fell asleep on a couple of occasions and there was no getting back into it after that.

"You will get punished and we must make sure we remember this in the rest of our games. It was unfortunate to concede those goals when we were down to ten men.

"If we hadn't conceded them I really thought we would have gone on to win in the second half.

"They wouldn't have sat back and defended for 45 minutes like they did. We were on top of them for the whole second half, we just didn't have any space to play in."

One more win will see Quakers safe, according to the boss. They are seven points ahead of the drop zone and Tait knows victory over Shrewsbury should secure their League status.

"A win at Southend would have seen us safe but unfortunately it didn't happen," said Tait.

"We're still seven points clear with five games left so three points against Shrewsbury should see us safe."

Midfielder Clark Keltie will serve the final game of a two-match ban on Saturday.

Read more about the Quakers here.