Darlington v AFC Telford: Bucks not taking Quakers for granted

Gavin Cowan’s Bucks are second in the National League North table and unbeaten.

Tommy Wright’s Quakers are 18th, yet to win at home and on a five-match winless run.

Darlington will also be without star striker Reece Styche for this encounter at Blackwell Meadows as he is on international duty with Gibraltar.

The odds appear to be stacked in Telford’s favour, but Cowan will not be looking at it that way.

He is level-headed and knows the home side’s poor run of results – the only victory being at Brackley Town – means they are likely to come flying out of the blocks, eager to keep a frustrated fanbase on side.

The Bucks may well have to be patient – deal with a fair few periods of pressure and cleverly pick their spots.

And that approach paid dividends in last month’s 3-2 success at Spennymoor Town, in which Telford fell behind in the first half an hour and picked up following an animated half-time team talk from Cowan.

Bucks midfielder Darryl Knights refuses to take the Quakers lightly as he believes they are better than the table suggests.

Like all the games so far though, he says Telford’s focus is not on their opponents – it is all about making sure they can continue to perform at a high level.

“It’ll definitely be a tough game,” said Knights, who got the goal at Darlington in a 1-0 win there for Tamworth last season.

“They haven’t started great. They should be in a better position than what they are. I don’t think the table reflects what they can do.

“That being said though, we’re not worrying too much about the opposition.

“We know if we perform at our best, we can give any team in this league a real go – as we have shown so far.

“It’s about preparing in the same way as we have done every other game.

“If our standards drop, even if it is just by one per cent, then we’ll come unstuck.”

Knights is one of many who are fit and firing for the Bucks at the moment.

Daniel Udoh is leading the way in the goalscoring charts for Telford – and is joint top with Altrincham’s Jordan Hulme in the division – having netted seven times in eight games. He is expected to lead the line alongside Andre Brown, who has impressed with his pace and power over the past few weeks.

Dan McKenna, signed on loan from Wolves last week but not in time for last weekend’s 2-1 victory over Ashton United, could make his debut. The only doubts going into this game are centre forward Amari Morgan-Smith, who recently twisted his knee, and left-back Steph Morley, who has been dealing with a calf problem for several weeks.

Morgan-Smith, along with Cowan, has been attending Cryozone Health in Shrewsbury in a bid to speed up his recovery and be available for selection. Cryotherapy is exposure of the human body to extremely cold, dry air for short periods of time. In Cryozone Health’s case, usually minus 85C.