Darlington manager Dave Penney's decision to freshen up his team paid off as Quakers secured a 1-0 home win against Wycombe Wanderers to move up to second place in the table. Darlington's result coupled with MK Don's defeat at home to Chesterfield means Quakers are now just two points away from the top of the table.

Penney however was most pleased at putting a gap between his side and the play-off chasers.

"You can't effect them, you can only effect yourself. It is another clean sheet, another three points and it's a bonus when you come off and see that there are teams around you that have lost," said Penney. "The main thing was to keep Wycombe behind us. They were just outside of the play-offs and that is first and foremost what you look at; how far teams are off you. There is still a lot of games left though."

Quakers tweaked their line up before the game with striker Tommy Wright starting from the bench despite being the leading scorer at the club.

"We would have taken that before the start of the game. We looked a little jaded and that's why we freshened it up in certain areas and we managed to get through it. We've got a ten day break now where we can the players nice and rested and ready for the games over the Christmas period," said Penney afterwards.

"Tommy hurt his thigh on Tuesday and he hadn't trained. He had a fitness test at about 1pm but to be fair we'd made our mind up that we were going to rest a few anyway. He was one of them, Greg Blundell and John Brackstone were also two of them. There were certain areas where we could freshen it up and so we did. As a manager I was never in that position last season to leave the likes of those out."

"We felt it was the right option and I didn't want to come off here today and be saying 'I wish I changed this.' We always had the option to put them on as we did later in the game. Now we've got a few decisions to make as time goes on for the Grimsby game," continued the manager.

Quakers' goal came from a wonderful strike by Pawel Abbott with time fast running out. The Darlington forward, making his first start since injury, missed a first half penalty and Penney admitted that there was a little confusion over who should have been taking the spot kick.

"At the start of the season we said that Pawel would have the penalties but Clark Keltie scored last Saturday at Brentford. He is in the ball park as far as I am aware to take the penalty and he should have taken it. There was a little bit of confusion but there wouldn't be next time," he said.

"Players have different techniques; some choose to smash it whereas Pawel went with a stuttered run-up, but technique doesn't matter as long as it goes in. We said to him at half time that he has to go and get himself out of it and get us a winner and Joe (Colbeck) set him up perfectly for him to hit it. We know he can finish like that."