CURZON ASHTON'S winning run at Blackwell Meadows continued when they beat a lacklustre Darlington 3-1 on Saturday.

Curzon have now won on each of their last four visits, and on this occasion they benefitted from a flat home performance and some generous defending which perplexed Darlington manager Alun Armstrong.

“Everything we’d done in pre season was good, so we were taken aback by the lack of intensity at times in the first half.,” said Armstrong, who along with assistant Darren Holloway was suspended from the technical area for their red cards at Brackley last season. They watched the game from a window in the club office overlooking the pitch and communicated with physio Danny O’Connor by phone.

“We weren’t on the front foot, we were passing sideways. We looked really nervous for whatever reason, some of the players who I didn’t expect to be nervous, were. We looked sloppy and slow, stood too far off them and let them have the ball for fun.

“The goals in the first half cancelled each other out, but in the second half they weren’t causing us problems and I thought there was only going to be one winner, we were on top. We created some good openings and should have scored.

“But then they changed formation, we gave away a sloppy free-kick and gave a poor goal away defensively. For me, Tommy has to come and get the ball. If you’re not going to defend set-pieces properly, don’t give away silly free-kicks.

“Once we conceded the second goal, the lads' heads dropped. Daz and I couldn’t do much about it from where we were, but what disappointed us most was that we took Ben Liddle off, then Adriano Moke said he was injured from a tackle in the first half. If we’d known about Mokes, he would have come off first and Ben would have stayed on.

“All seasons are up and down. We’ve got to make sure that we react to this at Hereford on Saturday.”

Quakers took a while to get going. Curzon nearly scored in the first minute when Craig Mahon turned a right-wing cross straight at Darlington keeper Tommy Taylor, then the keeper saved a 25-yarder from Isaac Sinclair.

The confident visitors took the lead on 15 minutes when Quakers cleared a free-kick over their own crossbar, and from the subsequent corner, Taylor’s punch dropped for Adam Barton to turn and fire into the bottom right-hand corner.

That goal seemed to lift Quakers, and they steadily gained a strong enough foothold in the game to equalise after 27 minutes.

Skipper Tom Platt’s low shot was pushed around the post by Curzon keeper Cameron Mason, and when Jarrett Rivers curled the corner into the six-yard box from the left, debutant Toby Lees found space and headed past Mason.

Curzon were perhaps fortunate to keep ten men on the field on 38 minutes when Alex Kenyon lunged in on Moke and was shown yellow.

Quakers nearly took the lead just on half-time when Moke threaded the ball into the box for Cameron Salkeld to control, but he put his effort over the bar.

At the start of the second half, right-back Kallum Griffiths got round the back and fired across the six-yard box where Salkeld and Liddle were unable to turn the ball home, then Griffiths forced a full-length save out of Mason from 25 yards.

Just as it seemed as if Quakers would take the lead, Curzon struck at the other end when a free-kick was hoisted in from the right for George Waring to climb and head past Taylor.

Quakers tried to hit back, and on 72 minutes, Jordan Mustoe floated the ball in from the left for Jacob Hazel to head against the bar.

Quakers used all three subs, then Rivers limped off injured, and to make matters worse, in stoppage time after Taylor stopped Hayhurst twice from point-blank range, Hayhurst won possession off Lees inside the Quakers box and beat Taylor with a low shot for the third.