Darlington manager Dave Penney admitted that Quakers probably would not have come away with a point last season if they had been placed under the same pressure as they were at Bradford City. Darlington were placed under serve pressure for much of the game but held on for a share of the spoils and for that they deserve credit said the manager.

Quakers have one of the strongest defensive records in the Football League. Concentration and organisation were the names of the game at Valley Parade on Saturday as Darlington once again kept another clean sheet on their travels despite all the odds.

"It was like the Alamo at times," admitted Penney afterwards. "That was because we didn't hold the ball well enough up front. If we are defending it we need some respite and we need our font men to get it. The ball kept coming straight back and defensively you can't get out. When we did get a hold of it we looked okay. Despite that you have to give the players credit because they dug in and put their bodies in the way."

"We would have buckled under that pressure last season, that is for sure. We rode our luck at times and we put our bodies on the line. We didn't come here for a draw but the way they played and the possession they had then we will certainly take it. We wanted to win it for our supporters who were fantastic. We are disappointed we couldn't play better but not too disappointed with the result because it is a good point."

Penney changed his system for the match but he conceded it had not worked as planed. A knee injury to Julian Joachim allowed the Darlington boss to reshuffle but reverted back during the second period.

"We'd been thinking about changing our system away from home for a little bit now. We did it a couple of times last year and got good results. The absence of Julian Joachim gave us an opportunity to look at it again. We didn't get much joy from it but whatever shape you play if we don't hold the ball up then it will keep coming back. Formations or structures are irrelevant really it is about how the players do when they get a hold of the ball," he said.

"Julian tweaked his knee on Thursday in training and it was a little bit sore so we didn't make him play. That gave us a chance to have a look at a different shape. We went back to 4-4-2 with about half an hour left and we looked a bit better. We then put Ian Miller on at the end to head everything out," continued the manager.