You could feel the sense of relief amongst Darlo fans at Saltergate when Tommy Wright's goal earned Quakers the point to guarantee a play off place.

You could also sense the confidence boost amongst manager Dave Penney and the players afterwards, as they picked up their first point in three games, and knocked Chesterfield out of the play off reckoning.

There wasn't much to get excited about in the first half, in fact the only talking point was a collision between referee Karl Evans and Chesterfield midfielder Peter Leven, who despite receiving treatment, limped off and had to be replaced.

At half time, the game looked destined for a goalless draw, but then Chesterfield took the lead on 52 minutes with a routine goal, when Steve Fletcher flicked on a long clearance for Jamie Ward to beat David Stockdale with a left foot shot.

You could sense the tension amongst Darlo fans as they did their mental arithmetic and checked Chesterfield's last two games.

But then the mood changed on 67 minutes. A long clearance by David Stockdale - the subject of strong interest from Fulham - was helped on by the recalled Neil Wainwright for Wright to run through and slot in the equaliser.

Chesterfield threw men forward for the closing stages - their keeper even came up for two late corners -- but Darlo kept their nerve well until the final whistle.

The daft thing is, if Darlo had won on Saturday, then talk of automatic promotion would have been revived again, it's that tight for the third promotion place behind MK Dons and Peterborough.

Afterwards, Dave Penney said: "I thought our passing was very good, and the players handled the pressure well. I want us to finish as high up as possible now, so then we can have the second leg of the play off at home."

Darlo fans won't need reminding that this will be Quakers' third play off campaign, the previous two being in 1996 and 2000. We won both legs of our semi finals on both occasions.

But before that, Quakers are at home to third bottom Dagenham and Redbridge, who will come to the Arena looking for a win on Saturday to stay out of the bottom two, and then we go to Peterborough on the last day of the regular season.