HAVING now strung together ten successive league wins on the road, perhaps Darlington will begin to wish they did not have so many matches remaining on home soil, writes Craig Stoddart.

The perfect ten was completed at Padiham on Saturday, despite an unconvincing performance in which Darlington were never at their best. They did enough to secure a 2-0 win, turning up the heat on their promotion rivals.

Some results elsewhere went in their favour and Quakers need teams around them to continue to falter.

Left-back Terry Galbraith had a hand in both goals. On 14 minutes his long pass was collected by David Dowson, who shrugged off burly centre-back Jack Overson before chipping goalkeeper Sean Davis to make it 1-0.

It was probably his finest goal this season, though his day was cut short due to a hamstring strain and he was replaced by Nathan Fisher, who went on to grab the second.

It is hoped Dowson’s injury is not too serious, especially given that he’s in good form.

Saturday’s strike took his league tally to 12 – eight coming in the last 11 fixtures.

“It was a great ball from Galbraith and a nice turn by Dows,” said manager Martin Gray. “He had a lot of work and managed to chip the keeper at an angle. He had a defender on him too, so that was a great finish and an important goal.”