King's Lynn Town 2 Darlington 1

Adam Lakeland praised his King’s Lynn Town players after a tough week ended with a battling victory at The Walks.

Lynn came through two FA Cup games against Worksop, edging through after a penalty shootout in Tuesday's replay, and then ended Darlington’s six-game run of clean sheets to move back up to sixth in the National League North table.

Darlington were ahead on 13 minutes, but Tommy Hughes made it all square on 34 minutes before Ross Crane got the winner 11 minutes from time.

“It's been a great week for us,” said Lakeland. “We've spoken so much about wanting to make this place a difficult place to come and for us to have won the last three games here, including the Cheshunt (FA Cup) one, the feeling that everybody leaves the ground with after going through on Tuesday night and seeing the effort of the players and then to come back today and see the effort of the players to come from behind again and find a way.

“We haven't played brilliantly in the last few weeks, and I'm the first to admit that, but we found a way to get results. I think that's one defeat in eight now, so we're in decent form, we're not conceding many goals at all. We're in a good place. We're only going to keep on getting better and getting stronger and I genuinely believe that, I've said it since the word go.

“It's been a really good but tough week and the players deserve a lot of credit and they'll get an extra day off on Monday because they've deserved it.”

Darlington were no pushovers and it took errors by both keepers to make the goals.

“They are a good side and they were certainly the better side for the first 25 minutes,” said Lakeland. “We were all at sea.

“Their keeper made a really good save off Josh Hmami on 10 minutes and that's probably the first time where we put our foot on the ball, made a few passes, got in and he's made a good save up to his right.

“Just two minutes later they go and to score - just soft from a throw in, he’s running through, runs off, probably Jonah (Paul Jones) should do better, but they deservedly went in front and we were probably fortunate that it wasn't further - I think they had a few efforts from distance.

“But we found a way to claw ourselves back into the game and forced an error. We spoke about our press and trying to force mistakes because they are a good footballing team, if you stand off them. And forcing that mistake through Ross Crane and then Tommy Hughes getting his goal, just got us back in the game when maybe we didn't deserved to.

“But I felt we then got on top in the game up until half-time and I thought second-half we were the better team. We competed so much better right across the pitch, looked a little bit of a threat at times. We had more spells of possession, restricted then playing through as much as they did in the first 25 minutes and massive credit to the players for winning a game from behind, which is so difficult to do in this league.”

Crane was the inspiration for Lynn, who went behind after a rare mistake by Jones, who couldn’t keep out Jack Maskell’s low shot from eight yards.

It was hard going for Lynn but the leveller owed much to Crane’s persistence when he closed down defender Toby Lees as he tried to control a pass from his keeper. Crane squared it across the area for Hughes to strike, and although his effort wasn’t the strongest, keeper Peter Jameson let it squirm under his body.

Lynn grew into the game after the break and error number three gifted Lynn the winner. Lees allowed a high ball to bounce on the edge of the Darlington area, and as he and keeper Jameson went to claim control, Crane muscled in on both and the loose ball fell perfectly for him to slot into an empty net.

King’s Lynn Town: Jones, Sass, Taylor, Wilson, Crowe, Johnson, Hmami (McCammon 78), Hughes, Crane, Barnes (Ronan 88), Omotayo (Williams 65). Subs not used: Coulson, Boyes.

Goals: Hughes 34, Crane 79

Darlington: Jameson, Barrow, Lees, Forbes, Cornish, Hatfield, Maskell, Nelson, Flint, McGowan, Griffiths. Subs: Evans, Small. Payne, Rivers, Al-Shabeeb.

Goal: Maskell 13

Attendance: 874