Hatch was stretchered off in the FA Cup defeat by Droylsden

Darlington manager Dave Penney will give striker Liam Hatch sufficient time to recover from the neck injury he suffered at Droylsden on Tuesday.

Hatch, 26, was cleared of a broken neck by X-ray on the night of the incident and Penney is keen to ensure the on-loan player makes a full recovery.

"We can count him out of Saturday and Tuesday so we'll look to early December to get him back," he told BBC Tees.

"He was fine, he's got a whiplash injury which takes time to settle."

Aside from Hatch's injury, there was more woe for Darlington on Tuesday after the club were dumped out of the FA Cup with a 1-0 defeat by the Blue Square North side.

And Penney is taking the positives from their exit rather than dwelling on what might have been.

"What it does is frees a weekend up, so we can have a breather as we've been playing Saturday and Tuesday for the last few weeks," he said.

"It'll be 10 days after the Chester game to the Rochdale game so it'll allow us to freshen them up and get a few players back from injury.

"We can kick on from there, get these two games out of the way, have a bit of a break and then kick on in December."

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