THE prize in the next round of the FA Trophy is a trip to Stockport County if Darlington can overcome Marine in this evening’s replay.

The victors head to Edgeley Park on December 10 in the first round of the competition, with Quakers and Marine meeting again in Liverpool having tied 2-2 two days ago at Heritage Park.

It was a result which stretched Darlington’s winless run to four matches, a sequence few saw coming at the end of October when Quakers had risen to second in the National League North table with a string of victories and scoring 20 goals in five games.

A failure to take chances has been a weakness of late and while they created more than enough to win Sunday’s third qualifying round tie comfortably, manager Martin Gray also believes members of his team have been inconsistent of late.

“We’re getting good, bad and indifferent performances from certain individuals,” he said. “They’ve got to be more consistent.

“When we’re on top of our game we need everyone to be on top, we can’t afford three or four players to be having an off day.

“We’ve been like that the last two or three games and we’ve been too inconsistent.”

Stephen Thompson scored Quakers’ second-half equaliser on Sunday after the team fought back from 2-0 down, Terry Galbraith having pulled one back during the first half.

“It was a deserved goal and it gave us a lift, but the chances we created we could’ve been three or 4-0 at half-time,” added Gray. “We dominated the first half an hour.

“You’ve got to take your chances no matter what game you’re playing – you’ve got to be more ruthless in both boxes and we weren’t.

“We had a go and created enough chances, but nothing quite dropped for us in and around the box.”

Darlington last January won 1-0 at Marine, Kevin Burgess scoring, avenging a home defeat from earlier in the season when the Merseysiders won a disputed penalty.

Their persistent timewasting may won them few friends on Sunday, but Gray said: “I’ve no problem with it. They came up here with the intention to take us back down to their place and they did it.

“Now we’ve got to get ready for Tuesday night and make sure we win the game.”

The prizemoney for winning this evening is £4,000.

Elsewhere in the first round of the draw, Gateshead were given a home tie with King’s Lynn Town, while York City will be at home to the winners of last night’s replay between Curzon Ashton and Worcester City.