AFTER suffering back-to-back defeats on the road, Darlington are looking forward to returning to Heritage Park tomorrow and, they hope, a much-needed win.

Defeats at Kendal Town and Farsley over the past week have inflicted a blow to promotion hopes, which had looked brighter following wins at Padiham and Harrogate RA.

The aforementioned four matches have all been away from the North-East, so tomorrow’s game at Heritage Park will be Quakers’ only third home game in nine played since the turn of the year and manager Martin Gray is looking forward to it.

He said: “It’s been four away games in a row, which is tough for anybody, so we’re looking forward to a home games and some strong support. It’ something that we’re all looking forward to.

“We always try to be hard to beat, home or away, but our home record has always been strong and we’ve got to maintain that.”

Gray’s men are three points adrift of leaders Salford, whose opposition tomorrow play is bottom-of-the-table Padiham, while Quakers face play-of contenders Bamber Bridge, a team Darlington have defeated in all three meetings going back to the beginning of last season.

Brig are sixth and this weekend announced the signing of former Manchester City striker Jon Macken, a former Preston North End team-mates of Darlington coach Sean Gregan.

“Sean knows him very well and told me a week or so ago that he was going there,” added Gray. He has signed now, I can’t see him starting on Saturday as they had a good result the other night [4-1 against Ossett Town], but he’ll probably be in the squad.

“He’ll bring them good experience and, don’t get me wrong, he isn’t going to run away from anybody, but he’s always been renowned as a good target player who looks after the ball very well and scores goals.

“We won’t have an easy game because Bamber Bridge are strong. We had them watched the other night and even though they’ve had some indifferent results this season but I’m sure they’ll get into the play-offs again.

“Our good record against them, it’s bit like us and Ramsbottom. But you’ve still got to go out and do the right things.”