STEVE Watson admits it's been an "unbelievably frustrating" start to the season for Darlington, with a string of injury setbacks preventing Quakers from building any momentum in National League North.

Watson has been without a number of key players, including striker Cedric Main, in the early weeks of the season and Darlington were dealt a fresh blow at the weekend when Scott Barrow suffered an ankle injury in the defeat at King's Lynn.

Thankfully tests on Sunday revealed that Barrow's injury wasn't as bad as first feared but it's still been a trying opening couple of months for Watson, whose side are 14th in the table after three wins, four draws and three defeats.

"It's been unbelievably frustrating," said Darlington's boss.

"Not with the football side of it, just the injuries. I try not to make excuses but they're not excuses, they're facts.

"We've had six or seven missing and when you don't have a huge squad it's quite taxing.

"It's been really difficult in that respect. I don't think we've performed badly, we can do better but it's difficult when you're chopping and changing.

"We're not in a terrible position. We're a few wins away from being in and around the top six or seven but don't want to get any closer to the other end. We've struggled to get momentum with the amount of injuries and changes we've had to make."

Watson was hoping Main was able to resume training this week and the Darlington's boss believes summer signing Jack Maskell will benefit from the return of his experienced fellow striker.

Darlington are next in action when they travel to take on Rushall Olympic a week on Saturday. There, Quakers will look to bounce back from their 3-1 defeat at King's Lynn, though Watson was positive despite that weekend setback.

He told BBC Tees: "Football is a crazy game. We've probably performed better on Saturday than we did in any of the previous four or five games but ended up with nothing. If we keep to those standards and cut out the mistakes we'll win a lot of games."

Watson still believes Darlington can compete at the top end of the table this year but knows for that to be the case the injury luck needs to turn.

He said: "Every manager in the world would say the same thing. The key to being successful is getting lucky with injuries.

"The frustrating thing I suppose is it's not like we have five or six soft tissue injuries and you think we have to look at what we're doing and where or how we train. It's been really bizarre.

"We haven't been able to get in our stride yet but we're still not in a terrible position.

"I'm really enjoying it. The fans are fantastic and we have a good group of players but it's been a really tough start to the season."