DARLINGTON'S leading scorer Tommy Wright will miss the second leg of the play-offs with Rochdale and will only have an outside chance of playing if Quakers reach Wembley.

He suffered medial knee ligament damage after colliding with Dale keeper Tommy Lee in the second half of Saturday's match.

He was subbed shortly afterwards, but only after attempting to play on for five minutes during which time he had a chance to score but, he insists, failed to take due to his injury.

"The physio has told me three to four weeks, but it depends on how well I recover," said Wright who has scored 14 goals in all competitions this season. "It's one of those situations where if I have an injection I am risking make it a lot worse.

"I couldn't really feel my knee at first. The physio came over and straightened my knee and it felt alright, but apparently that's the adrenalin going through.

"As soon as I started running I could feel it straight away.

"I'd been feeling fine all week.

I was rested at Peterborough and that did me the world of good because I've been feeling good in training all week, I felt really fit.

"So to then go and do that is a big smack in the face for me.

"My eyes lit up when Mick (Cummins) put me through oneon- one, but I just couldn't kick the ball and probably made my knee worse.

"I'll be devastated if that's my last action for the season so I'm going to everything I can to try and get back for Wembley, if we get there.

"Hopefully the boys will do the business in the second leg and give me a chance to play again this season."

Meanwhile, Dale's pre-match preparations were dealt a blow when striker Lee Thorpe suffered a suspected broken arm while arm-wrestling on the team coach travelling to the Darlington Arena.

Dale must bounce back from their first defeat in 11 games and Hill hinted that the pressure surrounding the play-offs had affected some of his players It's still a tight game in respect of coming back to our place,'' said Hill. We have young lads in our team and the occasion got to some of them in the first half, but we are encouraged because of our second-half performance.

We were unfortunate to be honest, but to go to our place 2- 1 down I'm still really encouraged.

We now have 90 minutes plus to play and this tie is a long way from being over.''

9:04am Monday 12th May 2008

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