Darlington's latest super-sub Richard Hodgson believes Saturday's result against Shrewsbury is evidence Quakers are capable of mounting a promotion push.

He came off the substitutes bench to notch an equaliser for Darlington, and in doing so followed-up the achievements of Mark Sheeran who twice scored vital goals in recent games having started on the sidelines.

After being unlucky not to beat Kevin Ratcliffe's seventh-place side, Hodgson believes Darlington are in position to compete for a play-off berth.

He said: "I think, if we hadn't got a result today, that would've been us finished for the season, but we deserved to win.

"The gaffer said to us that we've proved we're as good as the play-off teams because Shrewsbury are in the play-offs and we've matched them. Before they scored their first goal I thought we could have had two or three.

"The last 15 minutes or so, they had everyone behind the ball, and only danger was Luke Rodgers on the break. He's the one that did us down there as their place.

"Rushden are up there and they weren't that good last week, now we've got to beat Cheltenham at home on Tuesday and pull ourselves into the play-offs."

Hodgson's vital goal came during a frantic spell of Darlington attacking, but he paid a price for notching the equaliser.

He said: "I got a kick from behind from one of their players as I hit the shot, that's why I was limping a bit afterwards.

"I couldn't run after that.

"I wasn't sure if it was going in because the keeper got a hand to it, but I saw it go in the net so I was relieved after that because I hadn't scored for a while."

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