DARLINGTON are without a game this weekend, so they will be hoping Billingham Synthonia can inflict Spennymoor Town’s first league defeat of the season.

The teams meet at Central Avenue tomorrow when Moors will hope to hack into Quakers’ nine-point advantage at the top of the Ebac Northern League, a lead that was stretched last weekend.

While second-placed Spennymoor could only draw 0-0 at home to Bedlington Terriers – their fourth draw in 11 league fixtures – Darlington easily swept aside bottom-of-thetable South Shields 3-0.

Martin Gray’s side were in command throughout and the only disappointment was the number of scoring opportunities they wasted.

Their biggest win of the season was a 7-1 success over Billingham Town in October, and a similar scoreline could have been recorded had Darlington taken their shooting boots to Filtrona Park.

Gary Brown put Darlington ahead early on with his second goal of the season. The skipper poked home after Joe Tait had directed an effort goalwards from a Terry Galbraith corner.

After the break, Amar Purewal, who recently signed an 18-month contract, tapped home his 15 goal of the campaign after a Stephen Thompson shot had been parried and the scoring was completed by Tait with a neat finish.

The centre-back showed composure to neatly place the ball beyond the keeper after receiving a Jonny Davis pass.

Gray said: "If I'm greedy we could've been more clinical in front of goal.

“We could've scored five or six goals no problem, their keeper made one or two great saves to keep it at 1-0.

"We can't continue to create as many chances as we have done today and only win 3-0 – someone sooner or later is going to get a real good thumping."

Darlington’s next game is at Heritage Park on Wednesday, January 16 against relegationthreatened Norton & Stockton Ancients.

The original fixture scheduled for this weekend was a match with Consett, but that game was played in September when they would otherwise have been out of action due to it being an FA Cup first qualifying round day.

Quakers were not involved in the FA Cup this season, while Consett were knocked out at the preliminary round stage.