DARLINGTON can take another big step towards survival at Rushall but manager Steve Watson says there's still a lot of work to be done, even if his side continue their stirring run with another win on Saturday.

Quakers have powered their way out of the relegation zone thanks to seven wins in their last nine games and are five points ahead of this weekend's opponents having played a game more.

But boss Watson is taking nothing for granted and says his players can't take their eye off the ball.

“We keep emphasising to the players and in our messages to the fans, that there’s still so much hard work to be done, especially as King’s Lynn and Blyth won their games in midweek,” said Watson.

“This league really does have a lot of twists and turns left in it. As confident as we are and with the group of players that we’ve got, we know that there’s a lot of hard work to be done to get over the line.

“Rushall will have a go at us. They’re at home and they’re used to their 4G pitch, and they’ll be aiming to win the game. But that’s the same mentality that we’ve had. Since Terry and I arrived, we’ve looked to try and win every game, we couldn’t look at being hard to beat. We had to look at trying to win as many games as we could, so we need to go to Rushall with the mentality of going to win the game.”

While Quakers have taken 21 points out of their last 27, Rushall have slid down the league in recent weeks after picking up just seven points from their last nine outings. They have lost nine times at home this season, collecting 20 out of their 41 points at Dales Lane.

Watson said: “The players deserve an awful lot of credit, because they’ve dug in over recent weeks. We had two or three games in hand on some teams a months ago, now we’ve played more games than most of the others. If you look at the stats and distances they’ve been running, they really have put in a huge shift, but they know as well as everybody else, there’s still so much hard work to be done. They know they can’t relax.”

Watson will be forced into one change, with keeper Matty Young away on England Under 18 duty in Spain, so Tommy Taylor returns to the starting line up for his first game since Alfreton in February.

Watson said: “Tommy picked up a freak injury when he collided with the post, so because of that we had to bring somebody else in to deputise for him. Matty Young has been fantastic, we’re lucky that we got him from Sunderland.

"He and Tommy work really well together, Tommy has been a mentor for him as well as Steve the goalkeeping coach. It’s one of the reasons why Matty has enjoyed his time here so much.”

Midfielder Ben Liddle and striker Andrew Nelson are still missing because of injury while striker Akwasi Asante and defender Cardo Siddik are both back in training after recovering from knocks