Source: Northern_Echo
Cambridge 0 Darlington 1
AFTER recording their biggest win of the season at the weekend, Gary Smith's second-half header helped Darlington to their second away win of the term against struggling Cambridge United.[LNB] Smith rose in the 49th minute to convert Aaron Brown's superb left-wing cross in a game Quakers dominated for much of the night.[LNB] They did have an early scare though, when Cambridge were awarded a seventh minute penalty, but keeper Sam Russell was again the hero, saving Luke Berry's spot-kick.[LNB] Not since October have Quakers won on their travels, when they shocked top of the league side AFC Wimbledon with a 2-0 win at Kingsmeadow.[LNB] And buoyed by their record-breaking win against Eastbourne at the weekend, Quakers earned the win that takes them onto 41 points.[LNB] Afterwards, boss Mark Cooper was impressed with the patient approach his side showed before taking the lead and admitted the new attacking approach his side have adopted is paying dividends.[LNB] I was disappointed at half-time, even though we conceded a penalty to go in 0-0 at half-time. I felt we deserved to be in front, but we weren't and we spoke about trying to be patient and if we got a goal go on and get another one, which we didn't do and that was the frustrating part," he said.[LNB] We did get a goal and we thoroughly deserved to win.[LNB] It was important we got that goal early in the second half but to come away from home and keep a clean sheet and make it two wins out of two is great.[LNB] We're saving all our away wins for the latter part of the season I hope. We need to go on a run and win five or six on the trot to get ourselves in contention.[LNB] We made a conscious decision a few weeks ago that we were going to attack teams and push people forward and at the moment it's bearing fruit.[LNB] I said to the players after I was pleased we didn't concede a late goal, we stood firm without too much incident and maybe we would have conceded a late goal a month or so ago but characters are important.[LNB] The captain's playing really well and he's looking after Dan Burn, Paul Arnison's had a new lease of life and the left-back takes some beating for a left back at this level.[LNB] The first chance of the game fell to Quakers, when Liam Hatch headed down a left-wing cross from Brown to Marc Bridge-Wilkinson, but his flick was easily collected by former Darlington keeper Simon Brown in the Cambridge goal.[LNB] Minutes later though and Cambridge were handed the perfect opportunity to go ahead when Burn fouled Danny Wright just inside the area and referee Knowles had no hesitation in awarding the spot-kick.[LNB] Luke Berry stepped up to take it but his tame shot to the right was easily saved by Russell, who made it two consecutive spot-kick saves after denying Tamworth last month when the score was also 0-0.[LNB] It was a let-off for the visitors, but to their advantage, the missed chance saw Cambridge heads drop and Quakers quickly took control of the game.[LNB] After his hat-trick performance at the weekend against Eastbourne, Bridge-Wilkinson was again heavily involved in all of Quakers' attacks and it was his good work that set-up a a long-range drive from Paul Arnison.[LNB] The two combined again minutes later but this time the right-back turned provider with his dangerous low cross from the right met by Bridge-Wilkinson, but the midfielder's shot went inches wide.[LNB] On Saturday, Quakers looked like scoring from every attack, but frustratingly they couldn't find a breakthrough with Cambridge defender Brian Saah blocking an Arnison shot on the line after 25 minutes.[LNB] Cooper's men continued to dominate proceedings as the opening half drew to a close with Bridge-Wilkinson's volley-on-the-turn going wide, before he almost finished from close range after Gary Smith had played Brown in on the left.[LNB] By half-time on Saturday, Darlington were five-nil up, but they had to be patient and wait until the 49th minute for their first against Cambridge.[LNB] Brown collected the ball out the left and his curling cross was met by Smith, who headed past the keeper to give the Quakers a well-overdue lead.[LNB] Cambridge's chances were few and far in between in the first-half, but minutes after going behind, they went very close to equalising when substitute Adam Marriot's 25-yard curling free-kick flew agonisingly wide.[LNB] Quakers had a great chance to double their lead in the 63rd minute when Taylor launched a long ball forward. Hatch out-ran Saah and attempted to lob Brown, but the keeper made an excellent full-stretch save.[LNB] The hosts did have a great chance to level in the final ten minutes when Liam Hughes blasted over from a Patrick knock-down, but Quakers defended well and held on for the win to record their third successive win.[LNB]
