DARLINGTON are optimistic that tomorrow’s game at Hereford will be played and are travelling today ahead of an overnight stay in Herefordshire.

Due to two successive postponements – against Boston United and Leamington - Quakers have not played for a fortnight, and there had been fears they would have another blank weekend due to the impact Storm Dennis had in Hereford.

Houses in the town and surrounding villages were inundated by flood water as the River Wye reached its highest level on record, but Edgar Street escaped the worst of it.

A statement by the Bulls released yesterday read: “The Edgar Street pitch is currently in good condition despite the recent storms, and we’re hopeful that Saturday’s game against Darlington will go ahead as planned.

“We will keep an eye on the weather forecast and travel situation as the week progresses, but at the present moment in time, we’re confident that Saturday’s game will go ahead.”

Quakers boss Alun Armstrong admitted: “I hope it’s on, because you don’t want to be travelling down there on a Tuesday night. Lads would be getting back about 4am and then going into work a few hours later.

“I’m my time playing I travelled on the day a few times, but you’d get the day off afterwards because you didn’t have a job to go to, but these lads have work and people forget that sometimes.”

Darlington can call on Michael Liddle tomorrow as he has trained for a week since overcoming a hamstring problem, and David Atkinson is in the squad too.

Armstrong added: “Lidds has been able to train and Atky is back in there, but do you lose a bit of sharpness when you’ve got played for two weeks? You probably do.

“You can’t arrange any friendlies in case you get injuries, so you’ve just got train as normal and add a bit to it, but it’s been the same for others.”