IT has been a long time since Darlington enjoyed heading home with three points after an away win, and today would be the ideal time to record a much-needed victory when they head to relegation rivals Leamington.

Perhaps it bodes well that in Tommy Wright they have the manager who masterminded Leamington’s heaviest defeat of the season, his Nuneaton team winning 4-0 back in August.

The game was three weeks after Quakers won at Salford City on the opening day of the campaign, since when there have been 12 fruitless away journeys with Darlington dropping down to 19th.

Leamington are just above them, three places and four points ahead, and with Quakers’ plight worsening with every week that goes past without a win, Wright is aware that pressure is mounting.

He has overseen one victory in his 12 games in charge, so a repeat of Nuneaton’s 4-0 drubbing over Leamington would be ideal.

“We beat them early in the season and four probably flattered them,” said Wright, who watched Leamington’s midweek 3-0 home win over Gainsborough Trinity.

“But they’ve made a couple of good additions since. They’ve got Jack Edwards back from Solihull, they’ve brought in Kaine Felix and the centre-forward from Crewe (Daniel Udoh), so they are a different animal to the one Nuneaton beat 4-0.

“But I’m not worried about anyone else. I went to look at them because I wanted to see if they had a similar style of play to what I thought.

“I reassured myself by going there and our lads’ preparations will be based on what I saw. We’ll go into Saturday with a game-plan looking to exploit what I saw on Tuesday.”

Leamington’s midweek success brought to an end five fixtures without a win for the Warwickshire club, having seven days ago lost 4- 1 to Alfreton where Darlington drew 1-1 a fortnight ago.

“I heard whispers at the ground, even when they were 2-0 up, that they were very much looking forward to Saturday, thinking it was an even bigger game than Tuesday,” added Wright, who yesterday added left-sided defender Ben O’Hanlon to his ranks.

“When you get two six-pointers back-to-back, getting that first win is vital. Leamington have managed to do that.

“It wasn’t really a 3-0. Gainsborough hit the bar at 1-0, they missed chances and created enough despite losing.

“I think I know a lot about Leamington and I will back us against anybody in this league if we play the way I know we can.”

O’Hanlon, 21, has signed after leaving Harrogate Town, whom he joined in the summer from Wolves but used sparingly.

He has previously played under Wright at Corby and Nuneaton, man of the match for the latter in a 1-1 draw against Darlington last season.

Leaving Quakers, however, is Liam Marrs, the right-back joining Dunston UTS having been out of favour for the bulk of Wright’s tenure.

With Wright favouring a three-man defence, O’Hanlon will play wingback, enabling Stephen Thompson to play elsewhere in the team.

The manager has tried a variety of formations and personnel, and while there have been positives to glean from recent results, he admits that winning is becoming imperative in the fight against the drop.

“We’ve got 15 games to go and we’ve got to start winning,” confessed the boss.

“There’ll be people out there looking at the league table and looking for points tallies in previous seasons to see how many we might need to stay up. That’s the normal thing to do.

“People will be looking at other teams’ fixtures from now until the end of the season and trying to predict everything. But I’m going game-to-game.

“I’m not setting points tallies for the boys. I know where I expect us to finish, I’ve told them what position I want us to finish and that’s the target.”

While Wright says he has not set a points target, he is aware how many should be required to ensure Quakers are in the National League North next season.

He explained: “There is no points target, I just want to go into every game football and win it. At the minute I don’t think we’re that far away from winning.

“I know how many is needed. My memory isn’t that bad that I don’t remember what was needed last season, when I was at Nuneaton, or the season before when I went down with Corby.

“Without worrying and looking at what other clubs might get, I know what we need to achieve.

“I’m not thinking about what we might need from the last five games in a relegation battle because I don’t think we’re going to be in it.”