HAVING watched with his dismay as his side collapsed in the second half on Saturday, Darlington manager Alun Armstrong will make changes for this evening’s trek to Leamington.

Quakers meekly lost 3-2 to Telford United despite holding a 2-0 advantage at half-time, the manner of their play and charitable approach to giving goals away enraging the manager and his assistant Darren Holloway.

As a consequence, they held a post-match inquest in the Darlington dressing room at Blackwell Meadows, and Armstrong later admitted: “A lot of strong words were said.

“The lads know that was nowhere near acceptable. The good thing is we’ve got a game on Tuesday to try and put it right.”

Armstrong usually makes no more than two changes to his starting XI, but he made four on Saturday for various reasons.

He explained: “I don’t like making too many changes because it can upset things, but in the first half it looked like it hadn’t upset anything.

“The lads have been here long enough now, everyone knows how we want to play, but I was massively disappointed with the second half.”

He knew prior to Saturday that Louis Laing and Michael Liddle would be unavailable this evening due to work commitments, so Terry Galbraith and Jordan Watson return to the defence.

Galbraith sat Saturday’s game out as he was not 100 per cent due to injury, while Watson served a one-match ban.

Goalkeeper Chris Elliott is on standby to play if Liam Connell, a PE teacher at a school in Sunderland, is unable to travel.

Should Omar Holness and Jarrett Rivers have recovered from illness then they will be in contention to start having been substitutes on Saturday, a game which saw Alex Storey and Justin Donawa score during the first half.

“The halves were so contrasting,” added Armstrong. “I never saw it coming. We’ve got to repeat what we did in the first half for the full 90 minutes.

“It’s been a shortfall of ours all season, because the squad isn’t big enough, we haven’t got enough players to continue from the first half.

“Omar was ill, I could maybe have brought on Osagi Bascome but after that we've a kid in Cameron Holliday and it’s not the right time for him.”

Donawa made his third start of the season, and Armstrong said: “Justin tired in the second half, he wasn’t doing the runs that he was in the first half, he was in front of their defence again. He’s fine when he’s playing in front of the dug-outs when we can talk to him, but I think Ben Hedley missed Jarrett a bit because he helps out defensively.

“Justin took his goal extremely well, but there’s still loads to add to his game.”

Leamington are 17th, two points and two places below Darlington. Ten days ago they beat Spennymoor Town in the FA Trophy, but Quakers have already won once this season at The Phillips 66 Community Stadium in the FA Cup.