Pessimism surrounds Quakers play-off push
Darlington 2 Dagenham & Redbridge 3
In the event that a Darlington match in the play-offs goes to penalties, immediately after Saturday's game they staged a mock shoot-out.
Practice makes perfect manager Dave Penney later explained. But Quakers need not worry about such a potentiality unless they can somehow shake themselves out of a horrid run that has seen their season nosedive.
It has not yet crash-landed, but a dreadful run of results suggests that that moment is threatening to come in the play-offs.
Managing to lose to relegation fodder despite being 2-0 up at one stage sums up how bad things are right now.
Just one win in 11 games counters Penney's claims that there should now be a buzz about the town.
Last week Quakers' boss complained about a prevailing negative attitude towards the club.
He said, during his time at Swansea and Doncaster while involved in such scenarios, that there had been a feel-good factor.
But after Saturday's defeat made it eight matches without a win, it is of little surprise that supporters remain sceptical of Darlington's play-off chances.
Pre-March and sights were set on the top three, and some fans even had one eye on the title.
But woeful form has dampened spirits, while the experience of previous failures has taught weary Darlington fans to remain cautious at such times.
Penney had nothing to do with defeats at Wembley in 1996 and 2000, or the narrowly missing out on the play-offs with consecutive eighth place finishes in more recent years.
But he is discovering that such disappointments have made supporters wary of being too optimistic. And on Saturday Penney was shown exactly why.
It was classic Darlington. They were 2-0 up and coasting against a side seemingly destined to take their relegation fight to the final game of the season.
It may have been lacklustre but Ricky Ravenhill's headed 20th minute opener followed by Shaun Reay's first senior goal just after the break had the fans in high spirits.
As requested by Penney, they made plenty of noise as they savoured, finally, the sight of Darlington easing their way to their first comfortable three points for some time.
Perhaps the proverbial corner had been turned.
Then three quickfire goals turned a morale-boosting win into a despair-inducing defeat.
Adding to the frustration was the sight of Pawel Abbott limping from the field clutching his hamstring.
A full assessment of his condition will not be made until today, but Penney and the supporters will be keeping their fingers crossed that he returns for the play-offs.
Following the mock shoot-out, Penney spent close to an hour in the changing room with his players, holding what he called an "honest chat".
It is more than likely the discussion will have centred, among other issues, on how fragile the Quakers' defence has become.
Formerly known as the rock on which the promotion charge was being built - amassing 23 clean sheets - it has now conceded 15 goals in nine games.
With a play-off place assured, the game meant relatively little to Darlington but there was no justification for them crumbling the moment Dagenham sub Sam Sloma pulled a goal back after 63 minutes.
"We went from cruising at 2-0, not looking in any danger, to chucking the game away," admitted Penney.
"We shouldn't be conceding three goals like that.
"Our strength earlier in the season was our defence and back then we wouldn't have conceded goals like that.
"There's been a small change in personnel and there's a lack of confidence maybe, the belief has gone a little bit.
"We have to quickly get that belief back before the play-offs start.
"I'm hoping that was the kick up the backside that we needed. If you look back, earlier this season, we lost 5-1 at Hereford but responded the right way by going on a good run and keeping five clean sheets.
"We had a frank and honest chat in the changing rooms.
"The players said a few things and me and Martin Gray said a few things that we felt needed to be said.
"I don't think the players have let themselves down before, or as badly as they did today."
Reay, on for Abbott, had made it 2-0 by dinking over the keeper from close-range after a good build-up involving Neil Wainwright, who teed-up Ravenhill for his goal, and Tommy Wright.
Whether Dagenham defender Mark Arber got the final touch was irrelevant. Darlington were in the lead and in command.
Penney even gave Wright a rest and took him off.
Wainwright should have made it 3-0 but failed to shoot and instead passed, poorly, to Craig Nelthorpe and within two minutes it was 2-1 thanks to Sloma.
Another 60 seconds after Sloma's strike, following a low ball from the right, the Daggers won a penalty and Quakers were down to ten men with Ben Parker red-carded for fouling Sam Saunders.
Dave Rainford belted home the kick and Quakers crumbled.
By the 74th minute it was 3-2 to the visitors, Paul Benson's shot deflected in off Clark Keltie after the visitors had been allowed to walk through the Darlington defence.
It had been coming, and more could have followed.
The result meant Dagenham secured their place in League Two for next season, when they could well meet Quakers again.
3:03am Monday 28th April 2008
Print 
Email this 
CommentPosted by: Darren, Darlington on 7:27am Mon 28 Apr 08
Totally agree with this statement "[italic]But woeful form has dampened spirits, while the experience of previous failures has taught weary Darlington fans to remain cautious at such times[/italic] " Maybes Mr Penny will understand why there is such a low around the club at the moment.
Totally agree with this statement "
But woeful form has dampened spirits, while the experience of previous failures has taught weary Darlington fans to remain cautious at such times " Maybes Mr Penny will understand why there is such a low around the club at the moment.
Posted by: Geoff Gale on 11:43pm Tue 29 Apr 08
Any other time of the season with a run of results that Penny has had he can find himself very fortunate to still have a job.......
Any other time of the season with a run of results that Penny has had he can find himself very fortunate to still have a job.......
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
