DARLINGTON’S longest trip of the season is their second trek of the week and they need a better outcome than on Tuesday at Telford to prevent the threat of relegation becoming any greater.

After putting 360 miles on the clock four days ago when heading to Shropshire, Darlington’s destination tomorrow is Hereford for a fixture with fellow strugglers who are two places behind Quakers.

Darlington are seven points above the relegation zone, so not in immediate danger.

But with Hereford only a point behind, Quakers could do with maintaining their record of not losing away to any of the teams in the bottom half of the current table.

They can certainly ill-afford to lose on their travels for the second time this week, otherwise the current level of unease about suffering the drop will increase markedly.

Supporters who travelled to Telford saw their team beaten 3-1, familiar failings resurfacing with Darlington paying a penalty for defensive mishaps.

It was the first time they had conceded three goals in the first half of a match since September 2017, a 4-1 defeat at Chorley.

And it was at home to promotion candidates Chorley seven days ago that Darlington came close to a much-needed win, but conceding a badly-defended injury-time goal meant it ended 1-1.

Manager Tommy Wright had no qualms with Tuesday’s result against a side now sixth in the table, saying: “They are a good team and they took their chances, no arguments.

“They’ve got strength in depth – they made two changes to their starting XI that probably made them stronger, that’s probably the difference between the two teams at the minute.

“We came up against a play-off chasing team and they took the game to us.

“They got two quickfire goals and it wobbled us. To go 3-0 down was a sucker-punch and effectively game over.

“But if their keeper didn’t save Stephen Thompson’s late shot it could’ve been interesting, but no arguments, we were beaten by the better team.”

Wright’s team have won one of their last eight league games, drawing four, but he retains confidence in his players and believes in their ability to come good over the course of the final nine matches.

“The stats are there, it’s a fact, one win in eight,” he said. “Should we have won more than the draws we have had? Yes, but we haven’t.

“I’ve told the boys that we shouldn’t be in the situation that we are.

“Whether or not it will take two, three or four wins to keep us up, our mentality shouldn’t be looking at games like Saturday and treating it as a six-pointer.

“We should be approaching it as any other game and wanting to win.

“We fancy ourselves to win all nine games and we’re capable of it, but the lads keep letting themselves down by giving away cheap goals.

“It hasn’t been the season that we wanted, but we’re in it. Survival at this point is probably the main goal.”

Survival is Hereford’s goal too, and having been in the relegation zone when they travelled to Blackwell Meadows in November for a 2-2 draw they have steadily climbed to 18th.

Hereford led 2-0 at Darlington before Dave Syers and Jordan Nicholson rescued a point.

Nicholson has been a substitute for the last two games but is likely to start tomorrow, perhaps ahead of Wilson Kneeshaw who he replaced at the break on Tuesday.

Explaining Nicholson being on the bench lately, Wright said: “He didn’t train last week.

“His hamstring had tightened up, so we left him out, it had been niggling him for weeks.

“But he looked lively on Tuesday and it was nice to see him come on and influence the game in the way he can.

“He should probably have pulled the trigger a couple of times. I’ve looked at his shooting stats and he hasn’t been shooting as much as he was, we’re encouraging him to shoot more.”