AFTER an enforced fortnight’s break, third-top Darlington are back in action today when they take their unbeaten away record to St James’ Park.

This one is in Northamptonshire, home to Brackley Town, and it means the longest trip of the season for Quakers, who were without a fixture a week ago due to being out of the FA Cup.

Yet it has been a productive period for the club, with Martin Gray signing a five-year contract and the under-18s team continuing their progress in the FA Youth Cup.

They overcame Clitheroe 2-1 in a game played at Norton on Wednesday, recovering from being a goal down at the break, and as a consequence one of the teenagers has played his way into first-team reckoning, Gray said: “The first half was very poor, the second half was much better and there were some big performances, including the goalkeeper, Carl Robinson, who was outstanding for 90 minutes.

“On the back of it Joseph Smith is going to come with us this weekend. He’s an attacking midfield player, a second year in our under-18s.

“He did very well on Wednesday, as did Ethan Harker, who is going to play in our reserves this weekend.”

The newly-formed reserves have taken Horden’s place in the Wearside League, playing at Prudhoe Town today, while attacking midfielder Smith, from Fishburn, will be on the coach for today’s trek to Brackley, as will new signing Tom Davie.

Joining on loan from Bradford PA for an initial month, the left-sided attacking midfielder was man of the match when Quakers won in West Yorkshire last month, while he scored a header in a 3-1 Frickley win over Darlington in April.

Smith and Davie bolster a squad which is without the suspended Leon Scott, while Adam Nowakowski (Bradford PA) and Amar Purewal (Shildon) have left on loan and Tom Portas and Kevin Burgess have injuries, though Phil Turnbull returns from a hamstring strain.

Today’s ninth-placed opposition are one of only two other teams unbeaten on the road, top-of-the-table AFC Flyde being the other, with Darlington having won four of their six away assignments in the league, the FA Cup defeat to Lancaster City being the only disappointment away from Heritage Park.

“We’ve travelled well and we’ve got to maintain it,” said Gray.

“The players prepare well, but sometimes it happens the way it did in the Cup and you can’t put your finger on it.

“We’ve got to go down there full of confidence and ready to go again.”

However, Quakers have conceded more goals than most others in the top ten. They have kept only one clean sheet this season, a concern for Gray, who has focused on the issue in training since Darlington’s 4-1 win over Stalybridge last time out.

He said: “It’s something that we’ve worked on for the last couple of weeks.

“We’ve done a lot of defensive work. We want to get back to a clean sheet mentality because we can’t keep relying on forwards to win the game for us.

“Let’s win a game by being solid. We’ve done work on being solid and hopefully we’ll get back to good defending and we’ll cut out the silly errors which have cost goals.”