Darlington’s recovery in recent weeks has rescued their automatic promotion hopes and Martin Gray believes now is the time to hold their nerve as Quakers go into their final four fixtures.

Mossley are the visitors to Heritage Park today, when Darlington will look to make it six wins in a row and the manager says “bottle” is required if they are to see a successful conclusion to the season.

Gray is already proud of the team’s recent form. Their run has seen them record victories over some of the division’s promotion chasers, results that restored belief and they contrasted sharply with the previous six games when Quakers lost four times.

Those four losses wiped away the advantage that Darlington had held over leaders Salford City, the safety net provided by having games in hand eradicated due to surprise losses at Clitheroe and Kendal.

There is now no margin for error, with Salford expected to easily overcome mediocre opposition in each of their three remaining fixtures, leaving Darlington under pressure to keep on winning.

“We had a wobble and we came through and that’s down to the character of the players, they stayed together,” said Gray.

“I’m really proud of the players for putting us into this position. A few weeks ago people were starting to question is and criticise us a bit, but we’ve put ourselves into a position where we’ve got a chance.

“It’s about being calm now, holding our nerve and showing some bottle. The situation is no different to how it was last week, we’ve still got to win every game.

“We’ve got to take it one game at a time, stay focused and in control.”

Salford today face Clitheroe (in 13th position) and their other two matches are against Burscough (14th) and Ossett Town (18th).

Gray added: “It’s down to two teams and whoever wins all of their games will win the title. That’s been the situation for a few weeks now. I can’t see Salford dropping any points.

“This is what it’s all about, you want to be involved in games that matter at the end of the season.”

Darlington’s remaining opposition appears to be marginally tougher, though they will take confidence from recently overcome third-placed Northwich as well as contenders Droylsden and Scarborough.

After taking on play-off hopefuls Mossley today, Quakers must play away to both Lancaster (12th) and Warrington (8th) before ending the season at home to relegation contenders New Mills.

“They’re all winnable games, we’ve got to go into them confidently,” said striker Nathan Cartman, who scored the winner at Scarborough on Easter Monday.

His 74th minute strike, an instinctive strike on the turn after Stephen Thompson’s shot was deflected, was Cartman’s sixth goal of the club and his most important yet.

He said: “It was a good feeling, but I thought there wasn’t long left to play. I thought I heard the referee say there was only five minutes left when I scored so surely I’ve scored the winner I was thinking, but then a few minutes later he said there was another ten minutes left. And then he played all that injury time.

“I was playing on the left and worrying if I had my man, but I don’t think Scarborough caused us many problems in the last ten minutes. They tried to put the ball into the box, but we defended well.

“We were a bit scruffy in the first half, but that was down to Scarborough not letting us play. And we’d played on the Saturday too, that never helps.”