Darlington know they need a return to their miserly defensive ways of earlier in the season if they are to emerge from a potentially pivotal week with their title hopes intact.

They have four challenging fixtures to come inside ten days, while leaders Salford City have, on paper at least, their two toughest games of their run-in with matches against play-off chasing Scarborough and Spennymoor Town.

First up for Darlington is today’s trip to Warrington, who are tenth, before travelling to third-placed Northwich Victoria on Tuesday, which is Quakers’ game in hand, and then comes two games in three days with play-off hopefuls Droylsden and Scarborough.

Manager Martin Gray has admitted his team need to win all of their seven remaining games, and they can only do that if their once watertight defence reverts to its previous form.

Quakers had conceded one of the fewest number of goals in the country until the January, but goalkeeper Peter Jameson has since picked the ball out of his net 18 times in 12 games.

“There’s no question about it, we need to stop conceding these goals,” admitted Gray. “It’s basic mistakes, it’s never great play, it always comes from an error they can cost you.

“We can’t afford to keep giving goals away because against the likes of Northwich and Warrington we won’t get away with it. They’re better teams with better defenders and it would give them something to hang on to.

“We’ve got to be better at cutting out mistakes and getting back to the mentality we had two months ago.”

Darlington fell 1-0 behind in both of their games in the past week against struggling sides – at home to Prescot Cables and at New Mills – before recovering to win.

New Mills’ goal on Monday was particularly galling, unmarked striker James Hampson heading home after winger Robert Hiza had been allowed to cross from the right.

Gray fumed: “We didn’t stop the cross first of all, and then we didn’t deal with the cross once it came in.

“We had the players in on Wednesday night for training and another team meeting, which was really good. The players spoke well, but it’s not just a case of hoping it doesn’t happen, it’s a case of making sure it doesn’t.”

Darlington deployed a 4-3-1-2 formation on Monday, Stephen Thompson playing behind in a more central role, but Quakers had reverted to 4-4-2 by the time they mounted a second half recovery to win 5-1.

“We were just looking at it and sometimes it depends on how a team lines-up against us,” Gray explained.

“We’ve got the personnel to play different formations, Thompson can play behind the front players, but I thought he was better in wide areas. His goal came from coming off the line and his cross for Nathan Cartman’s goal came from cutting inside.

“I was so pleased that Graeme Armstrong got himself a couple of goals because he’s been desperate to score lately. He nearly got himself a hat-trick with a great strike.

“Thompson’s performance was great, he was a top, top player on Monday.”

Alan White serves the second of a two-game suspension today, but Adam Mitchell is available after serving a one-match ban.

The winger scored direct from a free-kick on the opening day of the season against Warrington, a match later abandoned after the referee was injured and The Wire refused to continue.

Warrington’s play-off hopes are slim as they are 12 points adrift of fifth place.