ONE result, no matter how good or bad, does not make a season. However, Tuesday’s defeat at Marine in the FA Trophy replay has gone some way to highlight a flaw within our current Darlo side that will need to be rectified at some point.

Before I wade in two-footed, I’ll happily accept that I can be a tough critic. When it comes to the standard of defending, I give Alan Hansen a run for his money. With that in mind, I’m going to say something that probably seems a bit counterintuitive: our defence hasn’t been particularly great throughout Martin Gray’s tenure. While we managed to keep goals conceded below a goal per game in previous years, a lot of the goals we shipped were careless, individual errors that could have been avoided. The difference between this season and the previous four is that we’re now playing sides that will punish them ruthlessly. As such, it’s only now that Gray has had to focus so sharply on the manner with which we’re conceding goals.

While defensive mistakes have been a constant over the years, so too has been our ability to bang in goals at a frequency that most could not match. It has gotten us out of a few scrapes. This season, we’re scoring goals galore once again but the rate they fly in to our net has stepped up significantly. Our creaking defence is being brought in to focus now more than at any time during the last few years.

While raising concerns over our defensive fragility, it’s been hard to do so without highlighting individual performances and those errors. So, instead, I’m going to go with the positive. For me, I think the defender who has been in this league over the last couple of seasons has been our best defender by some distance. Liam Marrs has been a big success. While smaller than all his defensive colleagues, he has been punching well above his weight. As for the others, I can’t be quite so positive.

While I don’t suggest we immediately go out and replace them – the likelihood is we don’t have the resources to do that – I would suggest that between now and the end of the season, they will have to prove to Martin Gray that their long term future is at Darlington.

I can imagine that Gray will be frustrated with his defence. While he has made constant changes to his forward line up and in midfield while in charge, the boss has stayed pretty loyal to a small number of players in his defence. However, as he said in his post-game comments on Merseyside, there will be change. We can’t have quality players in midfield and attack – who no doubt come at considerable cost – if the defence is not up to the same standard.

Whether we make the playoffs this season or not, to be good enough to challenge at the top of this league and beyond, we will need to be a lot more solid at the back – or score even more goals than we are at present.

There will be tough decisions going forward, some the fans may not like given the popularity of the players under scrutiny, but the one thing that I feel confident about more than anything else is that Martin Gray will sort this out. Whether it is with current personnel or with new, Gray doesn’t settle for second best.