SKIPPER Craig Liddle believes Darlington are finely poised to make a festive fling for the play-offs.

Ninth-placed Quakers lie just one point outside the top seven after Friday night's impressive 2-0 win at Cheltenham Town.

But Liddle, who reached the play-off final with Quakers in 2000, insists the coming weeks will be critical to their promotion aspirations.

"We're right on the fringe, which is a good place to be going into the Christmas period," said Liddle. "If we can go into the New Year with a few wins under our belt we are going to be right up there.

"I think with the squad we have now everybody would be very disappointed if we didn't make the play-offs at least."

The former Middlesbrough defender was pleased with the way he and his teammates responded with the win at Cheltenham, following back-to-back defeats against Swansea, Lincoln and Yeovil.

"That was probably the best we've played for a while," said Liddle.

"After the disappointments of losing the Lincoln game and getting knocked out of the FA Cup at Yeovil we needed to bounce back. We showed what we're capable of at Cheltenham.

"We felt that we let the supporters down badly against Lincoln so I thought we owed them that win on Friday."

Quakers will send a strong reserve team to Doncaster Rovers this afternoon as manager David Hodgson assesses the fitness of several players.

Curtis Fleming, Craig Hignett and Adolfo Gregorio will all feature at Belle Vue after returning to training following injury.

The trio will come back into contention for Tuesday night's visit of Mansfield Town.

"We've had a lot of injuries but once everybody's fit we're going to be looking very strong," said Liddle.

"Curtis (Fleming) and Craig (Hignett) are almost fit and it will be a huge boost to have them back and involved again."

Defender Matt Clarke could also feature today after serving a one-match ban at Cheltenham Town. However, reserve-team coach Neil Maddison will be unable to field trialists Tore Hansen and Mario Noto as they are not registered to play in reserve games.

Read more about the Quakers here.