INJURY hit Darlington will go in search of successive victories on Monday after a hard-fought win over Leamington.

Quakers celebrated their first ever home win against Leamington on Saturday thanks to a superb goal from Will Hatfield. It was a deserved three points for Steve Watson's side, who performed much better than their previous outing against Buxton.

Now, they'll be looking to build on that performance and victory at Curzon Ashton on Monday (3pm).

Already without three players – Cedric Main, Joe Leesley and Tom Platt – Darlington lost two more in Kallum Griffiths and Andrew Nelson before the start of Saturday's game.

But nevertheless, Quakers still put some good football together, with youngster Oli Thompson performing well on his debut and Hatfield scoring a spectacular goal.

Assistant manager Terry Mitchell said: “We thoroughly deserved to win. The performance was much better than at Buxton on Tuesday, and I’m sure the fans who travelled down there will agree.

“We kept really good possession, and showed a lot more patience in our build up play. We were prepared to come out and build up again. We chatted to the lads about Leamington before the game, and they put it into action. They created plenty of chances.

“It was a really good goal that Will scored and we deserved it for our play. We could have scored more in the second half. We talked about getting the ball into the box when it goes out wide and we got in two great crosses that Jack got on the end of. The goals will come for him, because he’s got so much presence in the air.”

The one injury plus for Quakers was that defender Ben Hedley returned to the side, and he nearly scored after eight minutes when new skipper Scott Barrow crossed from the left for him coming in on the blind side at the back post, to fire over from 10 yards.

Teenager Thompson, signed on loan from Gateshead on Friday afternoon, was quite prominent, and after picking up a pass from the left from Barrow, he forced Leamington keeper Callum Hawkins into a full length save.

Matty Cornish, making his first start of the season, threw himself at the ball when Leamington failed to clear Hedley’s free kick, and his header went about a yard wide.

Leamington hadn’t offered much before Quakers took a deserved lead on 31 minutes. Barrow cut in from the left, saw his effort blocked by a defender and loop into the air for Cornish to head towards Hatfield, who steadied himself and with his back to goal, volleyed the ball into the bottom right corner for his second goal of the season.

Leamington claimed a penalty when Callum Stewart ran into the box and went down when he was challenged by Toby Lees, but the referee waved play on.

Quakers had the chances to add to their lead at the start of the second half.

Will Flint, who had a busy game in midfield, found Jarrett Rivers on the right, and he crossed deep to the far post where Jack Maskell headed down and into the side netting.

Maskell went even closer a minute later when Rivers again beat his man and crossed into the middle where he headed on to the roof of the net.

The busy Thompson then forced Hawkins into a good save, and then he fired over after Rivers was challenged in the box.

He was unlucky on 82 minutes when a cross by Cameron Salkeld was cleared to him, and his audacious chip just cleared the crossbar.

Leamington thought they should have had a penalty when Stewart ran at Barrow and went down in the area but there was clearly no contact.

And in the last minute, Salkeld raced away on his own, but his low effort was blocked by Hawkins.

Monday's opponents Curzon Ashton will want to bounce back after a 4-0 defeat at Brackley on Saturday.