IF Darlington’s players did not already know they had put in a poor performance, within seconds of the full-time whistle they were given a stiff rebuke that put Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Chester into perspective.

Alun Armstrong is an affable character usually favouring an arm around the shoulder rather than a kick up the backside, yet he gathered his players on the pitch for an immediate post-match post-mortem and delivered a damning assessment.

Heads bowed and staring intently at the pitch until the moment had passed, like being scolded by a friendly father figure, one who felt badly let down and it was time he said his piece.

“I’ll take a defeat, but not like that,” said Armstrong. “We packed in there. I think we packed in when the second goal went in, and I didn’t like to see it.

“It was as if it didn’t matter because ‘we’ve beaten Guiseley on Tuesday, we’ve won three points already this week’, that’s what it looked like. I cannot have that mentality setting in.

“I want to win every game and I set up to win every game. That’s the most disappointing thing, an acceptance of losing the game – we shouldn’t accept to lose any game.”

Quakers were flat, having played in midweek perhaps a factor, they lacked energy and badly missed Will Hatfield’s tenacity in midfield.

He got the winning goal last Tuesday against Guiseley, one of seven wins in eight fixtures that lifted Darlington to sixth.

Armstrong added: “I think the fans were expecting us to put on a good show and there’s no reason we couldn’t have done.

“Yes, we played Tuesday and Chester didn’t, but we should be full of confidence and moved the ball around well after losing one game in eight before today.

“We looked as though we were nervous, which is worrying when we’ve won seven out of eight before today. To not be confident then is worrying.

“I said to the lads they were trying to offload the ball quickly, and there were not enough people showing for the ball, there weren’t people wanting the ball, and we lacked communication.”

For all the progress made since September when Darlington were 17th, they maintain a propensity to put in a duff display occasionally and Saturday challenges defeats at Brackley (5-1) and Leamington (3-0) for the worst performance of the season tag.

Unlike Leamington, Chester are a strong side, are now third having not conceded in four successive league fixtures and Darlington rarely looked capable of penetrating their defence with goalkeeper Russ Griffiths not given a save to make.

With Hatfield not risked due to injury, Omar Holness could feel hard done too for being overlooked for a place in the starting XI.

Holness’ last league start was against Chester on December 7, which happens to be the only other occasion Hatfield has missed a match, saw him score in a 2-0 win, but on Saturday David Atkinson appeared in the starting XI for the first time since September after an ankle injury and it was a loose pass to him by Joe Wheatley that led to the first goal.

Chester seized on the ball, Brad Jackson collected possession and advanced before rifling the ball past Chris Elliott on 12 minutes.

Aside from occasional moments, such as Atkinson seeing a long-range shot deflected wide, Darlington’s spells of possession were brief with Chester creating several more chances without scoring again before the break.

As long as it remained 1-0 Darlington had a chance, but two goals inside three minutes meant it was soon 3-0, both from set-pieces.

Striker Akwasi Asante, scorer of a hat-trick in this game last season, got the final touch on a corner swung into the box on 57 minutes, and after a free-kick on Chester’s right defender Danny Livesey headed in for 3-0 and game over with half an hour to play.

“We weren’t good going forward and we weren’t good defensively, we shouldn’t be conceding from two set-pieces like we did,” admitted Atkinson, who was replaced after 82 minutes by Holness.

Darlington did well to prevent further damage, Elliott making some decent saves to keep the score down.

They remain sixth and having won seven of their last nine league games will approach this weekend’s home game with Guiseley with optimism, particularly as Hatfield will return.

“It hurts me, getting beat, and it should hurt the lads,” added Armstrong. “Me and Daz are devastated, probably more devastated than the lads, and it looked like they had packed in, but you’ve also got to look at it and say how good they have been recently. We cannot be too harsh on them because they have been fantastic.

“Do we use that midweek game as an excuse? They have been brilliant in taking the amount of points we have these last nine games, but we cannot be thinking ‘we’re safe, we’ve done our job’, I cannot accept it.”