Lincoln City 3 Darlington 0
The only way is up after Darlo's first defeat at Sincil Bank in ten years - a performance that even manager Colin Todd described as "inept".
It's clear now that Quakers need to make a marked improvement, especially as there is a big match coming up now against Accrington Stanley, one of the teams near us in the table, on Friday night.
The travelling fans were hoping to see a continuation of the revival and a repeat of the win over the same opponents in the JP Trophy earlier week, but the writing was on the wall in the opening minutes.
Managerless Lincoln scored a simple goal with their first attack of the game. The under pressure Darlo defence could only clear the ball down the left, where Cian Hughton, the son of Newcastle boss Chris, had plenty of time to measure a cross into the middle, where Rene Howe found a yard of space to volley past David Knight into the bottom corner of the net.
Knight had no chance with the goal, and if it wasn't for him, Darlo could have gone further behind in the next ten minutes, as he saved from the lively John Lenell-Lewis on two occasions with the defence in front of him at sixes and sevens.
Darlo seemed to have overcome that unsettling opening spell, and nearly equalised when Gary Smith burst through from midfield and hit an effort that Lincoln keeper Rob Burch could only parry away.
But on 29 minutes, Aaron Brown made a run from his own half, and took three Darlo players out of the game with a pass to John-Lewis, who crossed into the middle where Howe sidestepped Knight's advance and tapped into an empty net.
Manager Todd was then forced into one change, replacing right winger Jordan Cook, who had a bruised shoulder, and replaced him with Jeff Smith.
Knight pulled off another good stop low down to his right to deny Jamie Clarke, before Todd made a tactical switch, replacing Nathan Porritt with Josh Gray.
Any hopes of a revival were dashed again ten minutes into the second half. Again, John-Lewis was the provider, sidestepping Ian Miller's challenge inside the area, and squaring the ball across the six yard box for Chris Fagan, who had replaced the injured Paul Connor in the first half, to roll into the bottom corner for the third.
At least Darlo didn't totally capitulate at that point. They nearly pulled one back when Burch saved from Matt Plummer after Ian Miller had nodded the ball down to him, but it was a case of stopping Lincoln from getting a fourth at the other end.
They at least succeeded in that, with Howe denied his hat trick by a good block by Knight, but the dejected looks on the players' faces said it all as they trooped off at the end of the game.
















