There's never been a better advert for Saturday afternoon shopping than Darlington's dire draw at home to Rushden.

Albeit for a frantic spell during the closing stages, the game was devoid of any entertainment and one can assume those who didn't depart Feethams ten minutes early with the hundreds who did, had already been sent to sleep.

Beginning on Friday evening with a trip to Luton Town, Darlington begin a month of five very tough matches and if they're to reach November with the promotion dream intact, Gary Bennett will have to ensure Saturday's lacklustre display was a one-off.

Rushden and Diamonds deservedly earned a point from an ugly encounter in which neither side did enough to justify taking all three points, but Quakers are about to face better teams than Saturday's opponents and will have to perform accordingly if they're to maintain the momentum gained by a promising start to the season.

During October, Darlington come up against the teams positioned in second, third, fifth and sixth positions in Hull, Luton, Shrewsbury and Mansfield while Bennett takes his side to Swansea where Quakers have won once since 1968.

Bennett admits the rest of the third division are now starting to sit up and take notice of his team which has surprised many by managing to reach the play-off positions having finished 20th last year.

"I'm disappointed because when you're playing at home you expect three points," said Bennett.

"But we've noticed over the last two League games at home that teams are going to make it very difficult for us.

"At first we were able to play as we wanted but now I think word has got around that that teams have to try and stop us.

"We've got to, not necessarily come up with another strategy, but be aware that when we do come against these teams we've got to be able to deal with it.

"We've got to realise that people now know about Darlington.

"But give them credit. They are a good, well-organised team."

From the kick-off both sides cancelled each other out with Darlington failing to reproduce any of the form displayed in what's been a promising start to the campaign.

The first half boredom was pierced by only a handful of chances for Darlington, with Danny Mellanby looking the most likely to get on the scoresheet.

He forced three shots at goal however, it was Rushden who'd enjoyed the majority of possession but they didn't manage a meaningful effort until ten minutes before the break when Scott Partridge turned sharply before firing wide.

Quakers could've changed the direction of the game in the closing stages of the first half but Richard Hodgson shot tamely at goal instead of passing to the unmarked Barry Conlon.

The game rumbled on with Darlington - in Bennett's own words - failing to click throughout. With Safeway calling, hundreds of supporters sought entertainment elsewhere but if it wasn't for Rushden keeper, Tony Pennock, they'd have missed Alex Jeannin's spectacular effort from 40 yards.

The ball arrowed from his left boot towards the top corner of the net, but Pennock was on hand to divert wide for a corner.

In the last few minutes, Rushden had two easy chances to claim all three points but, in keeping with the game's standard, Ritchie Hanlon and Jean Michael Sigere missed in front of goal.

Hanlon managed to side-foot-wide from close-range when he had time to pick his spot before substitute Sigere passed-up the opportunity to net the winner when the ball reached him in the six yard box.

Bennett didn't tear into his players after the game, instead, opting to let them learn from their own mistakes.

He said: "Playing at home, I would've loved to have played fluent football and I know the supporters were frustrated. I was frustrated but the players themselves know what's happened.

"There's no need to go ranting and raving at them, they know we didn't click and it wasn't a individual, it was just overall thing that today it wasn't there.

"But a point is better than nothing and we kept a clean sheet."

Admittedly, Saturday's game was Darlington's first awful display of the season - at least the draw with Carlisle saw Quakers score twice - but perhaps it will serve as a reminder that playing the division's lowly positioned sides doesn't automatically surmount to an automatic victory.

And on a similar note, Darlington can't be expected to play as they did in the win over Leyton Orient, or can they be expected to put four goals past the opposition as they did versus Exeter every week.