Holiday plans put on hold as Quakers look to play-offs
Stockport County 1 Darlington 0
IT'S hard to believe that only a few weeks ago Darlington had every chance of winning the League Two title as their recent relegation form means they will now be lucky to even achieve automatic promotion.
Quakers have collected only six points from 24, which is a real cause for concern, as Darlington seemingly head towards the play-offs.
They are now fourth and a point behind Hereford who have two games in hand, as do rivals Stockport and Rochdale who are just behind Darlington so the pressure is now on to win all four reaming games.
However, there remains hope of finishing third, mainly due to a quirk of the fixtures.
Later this month both Hereford and Stockport are to play title-chasing pair MK Dons and Peterborough; perhaps Darlington could yet sneak into third position.
But for now the play-offs remain more likely and Micky Cummins admitted as much after Saturday's defeat.
"We've got four games left and we need four wins to secure promotion, but I think we're looking at seven games to go really," he said. "Nobody's going to be booking any holidays. We're looking at the play-offs now, which is not what we want but it would be a great way to get promoted."
Winning at Wembley really would be a great way to finish the season, but right now Dave Penney's injury-hit side are struggling to score never mind win.
Darlington have not found the net from open play in any of their last three games and on Saturday suffered yet another injury with their only fit forward Julian Joachim limping from the action.
That left Tommy Wright, rated at only 75 per cent fit following a hip problem, as Quakers' only striker with Cummins then pushed up front, as was reserve right-back Scott Wiseman in a desperate bid to salvage a point in the closing stages.
With so many injuries having hampered the promotion bid, desperate is exactly what Darlington have become and it would be understandable if Penney was beginning to wonder what he has done to deserve such bad luck.
Compounding Penney's misfortune, Stockport's goal came via a bobble on a horrendous pitch, surely the worst in the league, which is also used by Sale Sharks.
The rugby union side played there on Friday and left it with barely any grass, but more than enough sand and divots which caused plenty of unexpected bounces.
One of them deceived Steve Foster, who spooned the ball over his own head, which allowed in Tommy Rowe to hit the post. The rebound, fortunately for Stockport, fell straight to Liam Dickinson to make it 1-0 after 37 minutes.
As Darlington's own surface is hardly of Wembley standards, Penney was reluctant to criticise, but Stockport boss Jim Gannon said: "The lads were fantastic because the condition of the pitch is making things so difficult for us. We're trying to play but the pitch is killing us.
"We're seeing players getting injured on the pitch. Julian Joachim went over on his ankle and Dominic Blizzard did. They were innocuous little things but it's because the surface is so uneven because of the damage that's being done from all the training that Sale Sharks have done on the pitch."
Despite the fortuitous nature of the strike, a Stockport goal had been coming. By that stage a superbly-timed Foster tackle denied Rowe a free shot while Dickinson had proved to be a real threat with his pace.
Quakers' hopes of an equaliser were dealt a huge blow when Joachim had to be subbed shortly after Dickinson's goal, though Wright must have thought he had scored with a header eight minutes into the second half. He was only denied by a stunning save by on loan Everton keeper John Ruddy.
Being watched from the stands by former England keeper Chris Woods, now Everton's goalkeeping coach, Ruddy reached behind himself to somehow claw Wright's looping header off the line following Rob Purdie's cross.
The move began with Craig Nelthorpe racing up the left as Penney switched from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2, Cummins now alongside Wright, and it gave Quakers the edge after the break.
They saw more of the ball but did not create many chances, while Foster and Alan White had to remain alert when dealing with the lively Dickinson.
With ten minutes to go White threw himself in front of a Dickinson shot, and Stockdale saved with his feet from the striker in injury-time - by which time Wiseman had been sent on in another formation change, this time as part of the attack in a 4-3-3.
He made a nuisance of himself but to no avail as Darlington sank to a fourth defeat in eight games.
Penney held a lengthy post-match inquest in the changing room and said afterwards: "If we're playing like that we won't achieve anything. We've let ourselves down again.
"We don't seem to start games until we're losing. We need to start games better and that's something that needs to be addressed. We've got to show some character, belief and desire.
"It looks like automatic promotion has gone now so we've got to make sure we're ready for the play-offs."
2:02am Monday 7th April 2008
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