DARLINGTON manager Josh Gowling is adamant Quakers will still climb away from the relegation zone after they carelessly dropped two more points in Saturday's 1-1 draw against Rushall Olympic.

For the second home game running, Quakers took the lead but paid the price for not adding to their advantage when on top, only to then concede an equaliser.

Darlington's failure to collect six points from these two home games against two ordinary teams above them in the table has left them seven points away from safety with three successive away games coming up before the next home game against Bishop’s Stortford.

But Gowling is still optimistic that Quakers can escape the bottom four, despite the misgivings of some fans who voiced their opinion at the final whistle.

“I get the situation that we’re in the bottom four, and I get the frustration and the anger,” he said.

“The fans want this club pushing in the right direction, so do I and everybody else. We’ll get there, but we need that support and we need everyone pushing.

“This started a long time ago, and we’re changing things around slowly. We’ll have some ups and downs along the way.

“There are a lot of positives. We are looking up, and we are trying to claw points back to get out of this relegation zone – and we’ll do it.

“I’m not worried. The players are frustrated and angry at the situation we’re in, but we’ll keep battling.”

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Quakers need to take their chances in the coming weeks, because they need wins more than draws.

Gowling said: “Rushall have had four shots in the game, and one of those was the cross for the goal. We had fifteen shots, and if we’d scored a second one, then the game was gone. We’re lacking that killer instinct. We should have had six points on the board from the two home games, not two. It’s very frustrating.”

There wasn’t much to get excited about all in the opening period for the fans, with both defences well on top.

The closest either side came to scoring was on the half hour mark, when Ben Hedley drove a right-wing corner into the six-yard box for Toby Lees to head just wide.

They went in front ten minutes later. Hedley again put in a useful cross-field pass into the Rushall penalty area, where Kallum Griffiths came in unmarked, and hit a right foot shot into the top left corner that Jake Weaver could only get a hand to – his first goal in 77 matches for the club.

It was nearly 2-0 a minute later, but Will Hatfield was just off target. Rushall nearly levelled with a rare attack, when Sam McLintock turned outside the area and hit a left foot shot that Darlington keeper Tommy Taylor saved at full stretch.

Rushall increased the tempo in the second half, and put the Darlington defence under more pressure, but it was Quakers who nearly went 2-0 up with a curling free kick by Will Hatfield that Weaver held.

The visitors had an effort scrambled away before they equalised on the hour when a cross came in from the left for Kai Adan George to glance past the committed Taylor.

Cameron Salkeld had a close range header blocked by Weaver, who recovered quickly to stop the follow-up from Jarrett Rivers, then Hatfield had a long range effort saved by the keeper.

Adriano Moke, who has yet to score for Quakers, fired just over from 25 yards, then with six minutes left Griffiths again overlapped on Hatfield’s right and struck a thunderbolt that hit the underside of the bar, with Cameron Salkeld bundling the ball over the line – but he was clearly offside.

There was plenty of pressure after that, with recent signing Akwasi Asante up front, but Quakers couldn’t break through.