CHARACTER is what champions are made of - and Preston North End showed plenty of it on Tuesday January 30 to get out of jail at Darlington.

Trailing 1-0 North End looked dead and buried ten minutes from the final whistle, then Kevin Kilbane exploded into action.

The first 80 minutes of his full debut was somewhat less than ordinary but he made up for it in formidable fashion. Kilbane's strong run in the 81st minute found Andy Saville and his cross headed home by Lee Cartwright.

Four minutes from time Kilbane left three Darlington defenders in his slip-stream before being felled inside the box. Saville slotted the penalty home to make it a PNE night to remember with the final score Preston 2 Darlington 1.

Afterwards, boss Gary Peters lashed his men for putting his promotion push at risk.

He said they lacked the common sense to cope with a difficult pitch.

But he went on to praise North End's giant Finnish keeper Teuvo Moilanen - making his second appearance - despite letting in Darlington's opener after fumbling a low free kick.

Peters said he recovered to make three great saves later on.

Peters said: "Our game in the first half wasn't good enough. I had to change things half way through and then we got back into it. It was a poor game but we managed to nick the points in the end."

Even youngster Kevin Kilbane described his debut as a "nightmare" before creating both North End's dramatic face-saving goals in the the nick of time.

North End remain in second place in the Third Division promotion dash, four points adrift of Gillingham - who show no signs of letting up following their victory on Tuesday.

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