DARLINGTON reach the halfway point of the season today by playing at home to Salford City, the team they started the campaign against back in August when the sun was still shining, Martin Gray was manager and hopes were high of promotion, particularly after a 2-0 win.

Much has changed since then, not least the weather, and a 9.30am pitch inspection will take place.

Furthermore, Tommy Wright has replaced Gray, and while promotion hopes have nosedived thanks to a tawdry run of form during a challenging first half of the season, the manager remains optimistic his team can turn their form around.

After beating Salford came two more wins – over Gainsborough and Alfreton – but in the 17 league fixtures since then there have been only two victories, Darlington dropping to 16th, just two points above the drop zone.

Its relegation form, concedes Wright, whose team are nine points shy of the play-offs, but he is taking a positive approach.

“We’re short of where we should be,” he admits. “We should be looking at the play-offs. That was the target at the beginning of the season and it was still the target when Alan White and I came in.

“It was around this time last year at Nuneaton that we won eight games on the spin – if we’d had another five games we probably would have scraped into the play-offs.

“I think this group is capable of going on a run, but if we’re going to do it we’ve got to do it sooner rather than later and we’re going to have to win a lot of games to catch up to where we should be.”

“I’m a realist. I know the club had a great August, the form has been poor since, it’s relegation form, but there have been manager and personnel changes and the team has been low in confidence.

“We’ve got a group of players together now, the group needed a lift and that bit of extra quality.”

Wright this week signed James Talbot, the goalkeeper arriving on loan from Sunderland and likely to start ahead of Ed Wilczynski.

Quakers have conceded three goals in four of Wright’s five winless games, leaving the team’s defending under scrutiny.

But Wright pointed out: “You watch the games back and it’s not like the opposition are having 19 or 20 chances and we deserve to let in three because we’re not defending properly.

“The lads are defending quite well, but they’re making mistakes at vital times – dwelling on the ball, not clearing their lines properly or passing their man on in the six-yard box, it’s just really daft things.

“We’re working on the defensive side of things and hopefully come Saturday against Salford, because they’ve got good movement, the work we’ve done will show.”

Conceding too many was also the case last season, when Darlington’s ability to out-score the opposition proved vital, but this time only two teams in the division have scored fewer goals.

Darlington hope the recruitment of striker Reece Styche from Tamworth, who scored two on his debut in Darlington’s FA Trophy tie with Harrogate Town a fortnight ago, will help solve their goalscoring issues.

His brace meant he became the first Darlington player to score twice on his full debut since 1988, when Paul Clayton did so in a win over Rochdale after arriving from Norwich to replace David Currie.

Styche’s final game for Tamworth was against Salford, the top-of-the-table team who are living up to their billing as title favourites and are nine points clear of Harrogate Town.

Since losing to Quakers on the opening day they have lost only once more and are unbeaten away in the league, though were defeated 4-0 at Brackley in the FA Trophy two weeks ago.

“It’s their title to lose and it has been from the start,” said Wright. “They’ve recruited really well, they went full-time in the summer, they’re heavily backed financially and some of the lads they’ve brought in have dropped down the leagues and they’ve taken a lot of the best ones in this league.

“They’re like Fylde were last year, and if a team is backed like that fair play to them.

“You can either admire what they’re doing or be really jealous.

“I’ve never been a jealous kind of person, I hold my hands up to them and other teams like Harrogate Town, who also have a good budget. We are what we are.

“The lads have to match them in terms of workrate and fight, and hopefully we can match their quality. I’ve said to the boys that I would back them against any team in this league and I mean it.

“We’re not going to set out to defend, we want to have a go at Salford. It’s not like they don’t let in goals, because they do. Brackley put four past them the other week. They do concede and we quite fancy our chances.”

* Defender Kevin Burgess has joined Whitby Town on a month’s loan.