MAINTAINING momentum to take into the play-offs, should Darlington be involved, is the team’s intention, says captain Kevin Burgess.

Quakers are emerging from some patchy form, putting together an encouraging set of results – three wins in five games – to stay in touch with the top five.

Fifth-placed Halifax Town are just a point ahead, though with a game in hand, giving Quakers enough incentive to believe they can break into the play-off positions by the season’s end at Salford City on April 29.

There are nine games to go, starting with this weekend’s visit of Brackley to Blackwell Meadows, when Darlington bid to complete back-to-back wins for the first time in 2017.

“It’s going to be tight, but we’re going in to win them all,” said Burgess, who was in the team that won 1-0 at Stalybridge Celtic on Saturday.

“We were disappointed not to get three points last week at Worcester, but we’re unbeaten in three and we’ve got momentum to take into the next game.

“All the lads have talked about this. We want to stay unbeaten, because the team that goes into the play-offs with momentum will come out on top.

“We’ve played every single team now and this is a really tough league. You’ve got teams at the bottom, and the quality might not be there but they’ll scrap for their lives.”

Three points on Saturday was crucial to Quakers, while the clean sheet was significant too – only their third of the season and first away from home.

Darlington had been one of only three clubs in the division that had yet to have kept a clean sheet on their travels, Bradford Park Avenue and Gainsborough being the others.

Not since winning 2-0 at Grantham Town in April 2016 had Darlington completed 90 minutes without conceding in an away game.

It is an issue centre-back Burgess admits the players have been aware of, and he said: “The way our form has been lately, things haven’t dropped for us and teams have scored against us. We haven’t got as many clean sheets as we’d like this season, but Saturday’s was another one we can tick off.

“It’s been on our minds. The fans talk about it and the lads are all over social media, so they’re not blind to it.

“I’d be lying if I said it’s not been on our minds, so we were happy to get the clean sheet.

“The ball hasn’t dropped for us at times, or there’s been a bit of bad defending, poor communication. I think we’ve been unlucky at times as well.

“There’s been times when we’ve not conceded a goal by half-time, but then lacked concentration in the second half, so that was the message at half-time was: Make sure we get a clean sheet.”

On the theme of rarities, there could have been an acrobatic goal from Burgess at Stalybridge as, for the second time recently, he attempted a spectacular manoeuvre to get on the scoresheet.

Against Stalybridge his overhead kick went over the bar, while at home to Harrogate Town last month he caught the ball sweetly from the edge of the penalty area, goalkeeper Chris Elliott making a save in the final minute to secure a 3-2 win and deny the skipper an eye-catching equaliser.

Burgess added: “It was a bit of a poor one on Saturday – the one at Blackwell was much better, even though the keeper saved it. The ball sat up nicely and I’ll try anything to score.

“I’m not going to lie, I’ve scored two of them before in my career for Whitby. People might laugh at that, but it did happen!”