Darlington make the short journey to Hartlepool today with a double mission - to double the season's points to tally to six and to make amends for last season's poor performances against their fierce rivals.

There is no denying Pool deserved to win last October's Victoria Park fixture: they bossed the majority of the game, created plenty of scoring opportunities and restricted the visitors to very few chances. Darlington supporters were not a happy bunch after the loss, and equally depressing was the quality of their team's play.

In the return fixture at Feethams five months later the rivals produced similar displays but tremendous performances by Craig Liddle and, in particular, Andy Collett saved a point for the Quakers as promotion-chasing Pool launched attack after attack.

But five months and one pre-season later the rivals go into today's fixture on a more even playing field. Both have one league win and a battling defeat to First Division opposition in the Worthington Cup behind them. But more significantly, there are signs that Bennett is moulding a good footballing side, aided by a clutch of quality acquisitions.

And although the cynics might claim early results suggest otherwise, these players have so far produced a standard of football rarely seen at Feethams during last season's turbulent year.

And Bennett agrees. "Last year is behind us now, if we started looking back and thinking about last season and the mistakes that were made we'd never get anywhere. We've got to look forward, we've got far more players now and we're much better than last year."

Pre-season results were hardly inspiring but Bennett protests: "People keep going on about pre-season but at the time we knew that the games were mainly about fitness and we knew where were going wrong. We knew what we had to do to put that right. The players have done well so far but they might not peak for five or six games so there's still more to come."

Convery, Mellanby and Maddison have all caught the eye, but Bennett faces a pleasant selection poser for the right-wing berth: Neil Wainwright or Richard Hodgson?

Wainwright received a knock on the ankle courtesy of ex-Pool midfielder Sam Shilton in last week's win over Kidderminster, and his second half replacement, Hodgson, played an influential part in the 2-0 win.

"I've got problems all over the park, said Bennett. "There's competition in the squad now which we never had before.

"I've got players coming back from injury like Phil Brumwell, Paul Heckingbottom and Clint Marcelle so it's not just one area where I've got choices."

Having been outplayed by Pool twice last year, Bennett knows what he's up against and knows exactly how passionate the supporters can be on these occasions.

He added: "A derby game has always got added spice but Hartlepool are a good team so it'll be tough. The fans want to see us get one over on their rivals and so do we because it would be another three points.

"If we play to our strengths we'll give them a good match because we've got some good players but so have they.

"In the summer they've signed Darrell Clarke who has been brought in to replace Tommy Miller, and they've brought in Tommy Widdrington and Jon Bass who are all quality."

Read more about the Quakers here.