DARLINGTON manager Steve Watson admitted that his team weren't good enough as they crashed out of the FA Cup with a home defeat to Gainsborough.

Quakers took a first-half lead in their third qualifying round tie, but then immediately lost their grip on the game by conceding an equaliser.

They never really stretched Gainsborough’s defence with their passing too slow and
predictable, while the visitors pounced on two pieces of poor defensive play by the home side to go through to tomorrow’s draw for the final qualifying round.

“We were expecting a tough game and for them to be hard to beat, and hard to break down,” said Watson. "But we didn’t do nearly enough with the ball, we had 70 per cent of the possession, but we moved the ball so slowly.

"When teams do what they do, you have to move them from side to side quickly and attack the weak side. When we did get down the sides, it wasn’t good enough.

"The quality of our crossing simply wasn’t good enough. We hit the first man 80 per cent of the time with our crosses. The quality and speed of play really made it a hard time.

"There are no excuses. They played midweek and we didn’t so it wasn’t an energy thing, we had players missing, but so did they.

“It just didn’t happen, so now it’s mine and Terry’s (Mitchell) jobs to get to the bottom of why. In every game that you play, you’ve got to be mentally sharp. I’m very disappointed for the club and the fans.”

Quakers dominated the opening stages, but never really tested Gainsborough goalkeeper Dylan Wharton, apart from a near-post effort by Joe Leesley.

Too often moves broke down because they couldn’t get the ball into the box, even though Wharton picked up an injury at one point when making a clerarance.

Quakers took the lead on 37 minutes. A good ball inside the left-back by Will McGowan allowed Jarrett Rivers to get to the byline and cross to the near post where Jack Maskell’s effort was blocked, but the ball came out for Will Hatfield to strike into the bottom-left corner.

But four minutes later, Gainsborough were level when a corner from the right was curled into the six-yard box where Declan Howe, who had a spell on loan to Quakers two seasons ago, headed past Peter Jameson

In the second half, Gainsborough were happy to soak up Quakers’ pressure by packing their defence, but the home side were too slow in trying to break them down and their crossing was poor.

Quakers nearly scored, though, when Mattie Cornish fired over the top from the edge of the area, and Rivers nearly got on his head to a good cross by Alex Payne.

But with four minutes left, Gainsborough won possession on the halfway line, and Lewis Dutroid broke away and fired across Jameson for the winner.

Quakers had plenty of pressure after that, but Wharton, who wasn’t 100 per cent mobile because of his injury, handled the ball well when it mattered to ensure Darlington finished on the wrong end of a cup upset.