WITH the end of the season in sight and Darlington in mid-table, there appears little to fight for, and they certainly played like it on Saturday against Boston United.

Lacking in urgency but not complacency, they sank to a 2-1 defeat at Blackwell Meadows.

The performance was flat, leading to questions about the players’ attitude – forcing only one shot on target and winning one corner summed it up.

The damage done is minimal. The teams have swapped places, with Darlington dropping to 13th and Boston moving up to 11th, but such movement amounts to much of a muchness, there is no glory in mid-table mediocrity.

Both clubs are jockeying for position as they approach the season’s final corner, but the manner of Saturday’s loss rankled.

Supporters still want to see a good performance, and manager Tommy Wright wants to maintain the feel-good factor that has developed in recent months.

“I’d like to think it was the rustiness that caused it, I want to think that that was the case,” said Wright, whose team suffered an Easter washout with two postponements.

“The lads didn’t play last Saturday or Monday, but I can’t help that. We trained on Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday, it’s not like we’ve given them time off and said ‘take your foot off the gas, lads’.

“We prepared for this game right, but we were never really at it.

“From a players’ point of view, complacency can become an issue when you go away from home and you’ve got ten fans watching you, not when you’ve got over a thousand and they’ve paid to come and watch you – the fans deserve more.”

The positive points amounted to Tom Portas returning to the starting XI after a calf injury, Dom Collins coming off the bench after recovering from a hamstring tear, and Chris Hunter, out since August with a leg break, taking part in the warm-up before kick-off.

It was after kick-off when the problems began, with little of note occurring at either end.

Boston worked hard to deny Darlington space, closing Quakers down in midfield, where the Pilgrims dominated, knocking the ball around well.

Quakers had not conceded in 407 minutes – a run stretching back to February 24 – by the time Reece Thompson blasted Boston ahead, nicking the ball from a Darlington defender on the byline and smashing home from a tight angle in the 35th minute.

Having not conceded in any of their previous four games, it took just four minutes for Quakers’ net to bulge again, this time Ashley Hemmings beating Aynsley Pears after James Clifton’s pass from the right.

However, as the half-time whistle approached, patient passing football led to Darlington pulling a goal back.

Several players were involved in a move which eventually came to fruition when Josh Gillies played in Reece Styche, who turned and fired home from outside the penalty area to make it 2-1 with his 21st goal of the season.

Despite the goal Wright later revealed the players had been given a half-time ear-bashing, and rightly so.

Yet they were unable to gather a head of steam during a lifeless second half.

Boston boss Craig Elliott said: “We kept them at arm’s length and still had a few shots. It was a professional performance. We didn’t have to entertain second half, we put in the work in the first half.”

Wright sent on James Caton and Greg Mills to little effect, changing formation too, but nothing came off against stubborn opposition that has recently beaten play-off contenders Kidderminster and Chorley.

With Quakers six points off the drop zone a threat of relegation lingers and Wright admitted: “I don’t want a situation again where we’re relying on everybody else and we’re limping across the line.

“We’ve got five games left and we’ve got players out of contract in the summer who should be playing for their future.

“And they know that players and agents will be contacting me wanting to be a part of this club, but that was a going-through-the-motions performance.

“I’ve warned the lads about complacency, it’s been the key word over the past two or three weeks.

“Four or five weren’t at the races, nobody set a tempo, nobody seemed to have that bit of fight in them, that bit of desire to be a hero.”

The huge shame is that this came at a time when the club is making strides off the pitch, engaging in the community with school and hospital visits, attracting a new shirt sponsor in Ebac, and on Saturday they held a ticket initiative aimed at attracting lapsed fans. How many will quickly return?

This was not as bad as the shambolic displays of earlier in the season, such as when Chorley and South Shields ran riot. Instead this was disappointing, given the standards set since the end of January. This team is capable of much more, the performance acting as a reminder that this team remains Wright’s work in progress.

The recent run of good results means he is well in credit, so the result and performance will quickly be forgotten.

Focus now turns to this weekend’s trip to FC United, when all concerned will hope for a big improvement.