DARLINGTON manager Steve Watson was pleased with his team’s performance even though two defensive mistakes cost them victory at King’s Lynn.

Quakers played well enough, especially in the first half, to claim their first away league win of the season, but they didn’t make their superiority count when they were a goal up.

However, two more players have been added to the injury list, with midfielder Joe Leesley pulling out before the game with a hip injury and defender Scott Barrow stretchered off with a bad knee injury at the end of the game.

He was taken to hospital on Saturday evening and is likely to be out for a few weeks. Perhaps Quakers will be relieved that they have a free Saturday this week to give some of their six injured players time to recover.

“I thought we dominated the game for half-an-hour,” said Watson. “In general, we deserved to be in the lead, but we have to kill games off when we’re playing well. We didn’t get that second goal.

“The manner of the first goal was disappointing, which let them back into the game. But I can’t take that away from the way that the lads played, because there were some outstanding performances. I thought Elliot Forbes was outstanding in his first game back and Andrew Nelson did well up front.”

Jack Maskell scored his second goal for the club to put Quakers in the lead, and Watson said: “I thought Jack took his goal well, but you have to kill games off when you’re in the ascendancy, we didn’t and so we paid the price for it.

“I thought we should have had a penalty when Will Hatfield was fouled. It was a strange decision from the referee – if he thinks Will dived then he should have booked him, but if he didn’t dive then it’s a penalty. He wasn’t going to go down unless he really needed to.”

King’s Lynn nearly took the lead on ten minutes when Josh Hmami forced Peter Jameson into a full-length save with a shot on the turn, but the Quakers had an excellent 20-minute spell in which they could have taken a two-goal lead.

They took the lead on 13 minutes when they patiently built up on the right, and Will McGowan played the ball into the box for Maskell to take in his stride and fire past Linnets’ keeper Paul Jones.

Quakers believed that they should have had a penalty a few minutes later when Matty Cornish sent Hatfield racing into the box where he was brought down by a defender, but the referee flatly denied him a penalty and waved play on.

Quakers continued to dominate and pulled the home side apart, but couldn’t capitalise, with Nelson off target twice.

That failure to add a second cost them, because the home side equalised just before half-time, when Ross Crane won possession on the edge of the Darlington box and set up Tom Hughes to side-foot past Jameson.

Quakers looked good to regain the lead at the start of the second half, but Cornish couldn’t quite control a great through ball from Forbes ten yards out.

However, former Darlington loanee Theo Williams, who came on as a sub, nearly put Lynn back in front when he raced clear, but Forbes forced him wide enough to barely trouble Jameson with his shot.

At the other end, sub Jarrett Rivers looked lively on the left, and his low cross was turned back by Hatfield for Nelson to have a shot blocked by a defender.

Unfortunately, the visitors gifted the winner when Toby Lees and Jameson got in a tangle over a bouncing ball on the edge of their area, and Crane nipped in to score.