STEVE WATSON feels his Darlington side are making positive progress – but admits the next challenge is to start turning battling draws into victories.

Scunthorpe United were sitting at the top of the National League North table when they visited Blackwell Meadows last night, but Quakers more than matched them as they claimed a spirited goalless draw.

The result means Darlington have now drawn four of their last eight league games, a run  that has left them in 15th position, five points clear of the relegation places and eight points adrift of the play-off zone.

They have become a side that is difficult to beat, which as a former defender, pleases Watson greatly. But they have still only won five of their 18 league games, a statistic the Darlington boss concedes has to improve.

“I hope we’re going in the right direction,” said Watson, whose side head to relegation-threatened Radcliffe at the weekend. “I certainly think we are.

“I said in the dressing room, belief is huge in football, and I think the lads are hopefully starting to believe that we can go toe-to-toe with teams. But we need to start winning more games.

“I think me and Terry (Mitchell) went 18 or 19 games without a draw last season, but we seem to be the draw specialists at the moment, so we need to start turning the draws into wins.”

Last night’s draw was a decent enough result given the budgetary gulf that separates Darlington from their former Football League rivals, Scunthorpe.

Quakers had the better opportunities, but were thwarted by an inspired display from Iron goalkeeper Ross Fitzsimons, who tipped Jack Maskell’s early header over the crossbar, made a fine low save from Will Hatfield on the stroke of half-time and produced another smart stop to deny substitute Caden Kelly in the closing stages.

“I thought we were really good,” said Watson. “I thought we probably put together our most solid 90 minutes of the season. We’ve had really good spells – we had a really good second half last week – but I just thought we were good value all night.

“We worked really hard, and limited arguably one of the best teams in the league to very few chances. We created a few chances on the break, and the crossing was better, but we just couldn’t get that elusive goal.”