Despite winning on Saturday, Darlington must learn from their mistakes says manager Steve Watson ahead of Tuesday's home match against Alfreton Town.

His team defeated Spennymoor Town 1-0 at Blackwell Meadows at the weekend, but it was not Quakers’ best performance and for lengthy spells the visitors held possession.

Ahead of facing Alfreton, whose manager Billy Heath is renowned in National League North for favouring long-ball tactics, Watson said: “We’re playing against a team that will test us with balls in the box probably more than any other.

“They’ll put the ball in the box from everywhere, they’ll make you defend constantly, so it’s even more important that when we have the ball at our feet we do not give it away. We have to respect having the ball better than we did on Saturday.”

Why did Darlington cede possession easily on Saturday?

“You can’t put your finger on it,” he added. “It’s the same as every club and you could ask any manager the same question, you could ask Pep why sometimes his players give the ball away…that’s football.

“It’s something that’s crept in during the last couple of games. We’ve got away with it with two good results but if we’re going to get to where we want to get to then we need to be better with our ball retention.”

The match against Spennymoor was Darlington’s third clean sheet in a row, and Watson added: “The result was fantastic and the way we defended the box was excellent, some of the blocks and the way that we defended set-plays, but the way we kept the ball was nowhere good enough and, because of that, we spent long spells having to defend.

“We need to be a lot better with the ball, but the endeavour and the effort was great and that’s three clean sheets in a row.

“It’s nothing that we can’t do, we just need to get back to the calmness and confidence that we had at the end of last season.”

Striker Jack Maskell scored his first goal for the club on Saturday, a powerful header after a Matty Cornish corner, and Watson revealed: “We’ve been working on that.

“Terry Mitchell has been setting up a corner to isolate Maskell because we think he can beat anybody one-on-one because he’s so aggressive and has such a good leap.

“He’s also got something that’s a rarity in young footballers now and that’s that he’s a really good header of the ball.

“We’ve tried that corner eery game and it was on the button this time.

“As long as the ball was right and there’s enough room for him to attack it, I fancied him to score and that’s how it turned out.

“It was the match-winner in a really tight game that lacked quality for both sides.”

Tom Platt and Joe Leesley remain sidelined, though Cedric Main may make a return against Marine on Saturday.

The striker took part in a fitness session on the pitch before Saturday’s game, and Watson explained: “It wasn’t a fitness test, he was just doing some work with the physio. Cedric, I’d suggest, has half a chance of playing against Marine but he won’t if we feel in any way that it’s a risk.

“He’ll do more work on Tuesday, hopefully he’ll train on Thursday and then we’ll take it from there. We don’t need to take a risk and if it’s a case of him missing another game or two to make sure he’s perfect then we will.”

Darlington have been handed a trip to West Didsbury and Chorlton of the North West Counties League in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup.

The tie in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, will be played the weekend of September 13.