A dull home defeat served further notice that Darlington desperately need a striker if they are avoid any more reverses against the likes of Bristol Rovers - a side who did little to earn their win on Saturday.

In fact neither team were worthy of the three points in 90 minutes of far from entertaining fare.

With the defence standing firm and midfield passing the ball freely, Darlington dominated possession but their build-up play went to waste and from the second of only two Rovers shots on target they snatched a win which sends Quakers down to 19th in the early League Two table.

It was Quakers' second consecutive defeat without scoring, and the fact Darlington have scored just twice in four matches says it all about where the team's problems lie.

There is already frustration among supporters and David Hodgson's post-match positive vibes were not matched by some in the crowd who greeted the final whistle with boos.

No amount of spin can deflect from what was a less than inspiring encounter, but Hodgson was pleased with his team's commitment and approach play against a side now second in the table and tipped for promotion.

"You can dominate for the entire match and then lose to a scrappy goal and that's what happened," said Hodgson.

"We were playing one of the so-called better teams but we only let them have one shot on target because we very solid defensively.

"But our players have to take a phenomenal amount of credit for the way they controlled the game.

"The desire was this week because we must've won abut 80 per cent of the 50/50 tackles.

"Clark Keltie and Brian Close both threw themselves into tackles and Liddle was his usual self - even Wainwright won tackles.

"I hope their confidence doesn't take a battering and I don't think it will because they've calmed down like I will eventually, they'll read the match reports and realise that we did a lot."

Something Darlington certainly did a lot of was attack down the right which almost looked to be Quakers only chance of scoring with not much coming through Joe Kendrick on the left.

Clearly hoping to utilise the height of defender-cum-striker Matt Clarke, Neil Wainwright and Ryan Valentine spent all afternoon pumping balls into the box from the right-wing, but in the final third of the pitch the dominant Christian Edwards hardly let Clarke near the ball.

Hodgson said: "At the moment we've got a centre-half playing up front who's lost that natural instinct to be a striker.

"But until we bring a striker in that's all we have to play with.

"The only negative point is that we had around 40 crosses - which demonstrates a phenomenal amount of possession - but how many of them did we get on the end of?

"Ryan and Neil were excellent in getting balls into the box from the right, but what I had to ask the players at half-time why we weren't getting it down the left."

By half-time there'd been no shots on target at either end of the pitch and as little entertainment as the statistic suggests.

Unfortunately for the fans, unlike at Feethams where dull games could at least be spent watching the traffic on Victoria Road or the birds in the trees behind the South Terrace, the Williamson Motors Stadium offers few other distractions.

In the first half there was a great piece of defending by Joey Hutchinson to stop Junior Agogo's run at goal, however, were a few worried faces on the Darlington bench when Craig Liddle went down clutching his right foot following a strong 50/50 tackle with Jamie Forrester.

Quakers were firing in plenty of crosses, but one of the few fluid attacks came through the middle of the pitch midway through the first-half.

Keltie, who used the ball wisely throughout, at the hub of a move involving several team-mates.

The ball eventually found its way to Craig Russell, looking for his first goal of the season, whose shot from 18 yards was deflected wide.

Darlington began the second half brightly but it was Rovers who had the first shot on target - Agogo firing straight at Sam Russell from a free-kick before Valentine's low long-range shot was cleared by Edwards.

The strongest of three second half Darlington penalty appeals - two Hutchinson shots blocked by Rovers hands were described as "stonewall spot-kicks" by Hodgson - saw Russell chopped down by Ali Gibb but the referee remained unmoved.

And the incident took on even greater significance as Rovers soon scored the only goal.

There's no doubting Darlington, now using a 4-4-2 formation after starting the season with a 3-5-2, are solid at the back and Hutchinson, up against a real handful in Agogo, enjoyed one of his best games for Darlington.

But somehow the Rovers man escaped Quakers' attentions to score an unjust winner with 13 minutes to play.

Following a free-kick from Rovers' own half, Lee Thorpe - given Darlington's forward-line problems, it's somewhat ironic he can only get a place on Rovers' bench - won a header in the penalty area and Quakers were too slow to react with Agogo prodding home from 12 yards.

Darlington aren't playing badly and Saturday's performance was better than the win over Grimsby two weeks ago - that makes the lack of a goalscorer even more frustrating.

Those frustrated a having won just one of the first four games would do well to remember that in season 1995/96 Darlington won only one of their opening ten matches - and they finished fourth in that campaign.

Result: Darlington 0 Bristol Rovers 1.

Read more about the Quakers here.