UNBEATEN in their first three matches, the indications are that Darlington are acclimatising to their new surroundings in the National League North.

Sixth in the embryonic table after a draw and two wins, they even topped the table for 24 hours after Monday’s win 2-1 at Curzon Ashton.

Darlington will drop a few places today, however, as they are not in action until tomorrow, when they travel to Gloucester City, a relatively long trek for Martin Gray’s men.

Gray can see room for improvement in his team, pointing to the latter stages of Monday’s win when Quakers were under the cosh at Curzon and only a dreadful injury-time miss meant they escaped throwing away a two-goal lead.

“We played on Saturday against Boston and on Monday and picked up six points out of six, we couldn’t have asked for any more,” said Gray.

“The first-half performance was dominant, it was a bit like the second half last Saturday, but you’ve got to take your chances and if we had it would have been game over.

“But there’s still lots to improve on so we’ve got to have a look at what we can be better at.

“Game management, being disciplined. We have to stop conceding after scoring. If we hadn’t done that on Monday we would have had an easier 25 minutes to see the game out.

“These are things that the players will learn and we’ll keep demanding more and more from them. One thing for sure, the players showed character and that won us three valuable points.

“I’ve got a good bunch of players with the right mentality and they know that if they don’t give me everything then they won’t play.”

Due to sheer weight of numbers a handful of Darlington players will be in the not-playing bracket tomorrow.

Gray took a 20-man squad to Curzon, leaving four players sitting in the stand – Chris Hunter, Jordan Watson, Adam Nowakowski and Stephen Thompson – but all were available for selection.

In comparison, 12 months ago veteran defender Alan White was used as an auxiliary striker, and Gray said: “I hope we’ve got a better team than last season. You bring in players and you’re always trying to improve.

“We had players on the bench and players in the stand, so we’ve good strength in depth. This time last year could we have left Thompson out of the team, never mind leave him off the bench?”

Striker Liam Hardy is available having shaken off the knock that saw him subbed on Monday, a match in which he scored after four minutes.

Gray admits he has some tough selection decisions to make, saying: “It’s probably the first time in four years as a manager that I’ve had three or four players in the stand.

“But we need that strength in depth if we want to compete and we want to challenge.

“The players on the pitch need to know there are players in the stand and on the bench waiting to take their place.

“We can’t do it with a skeleton squad like we did last year and expect the boys to do it again. We’ve gone up a level and we can’t do it with 16-17 players.

“They aren’t pleased about not being picked and rightly so, you wouldn’t expect them to be. But as a manager you’ve got to pick what you think is your strongest 16 to get you three points.

“It’s the hardest part of the job, it’s not nice, but it’s what you do as a manager. You’ve got to make sure you look after players and talk to them about your decision and let them know that they will get a chance.”

Gloucester are based at Whaddon Road, home to Cheltenham Town, who have a home League Two fixture today, and have an identical league record to Quakers.