A goalless draw at home to Swansea City can never be considered anything to be proud of.

Saturday was no different, but, rather refreshingly, Darlington were left disappointed with the point.

Quakers' performance warranted all three points. After weeks of poor displays, Darlington's teamwork made a refreshing change while the performances of Adam Reed, David McGurk and debutant goalkeeper Chris Porter were all greatly appreciated.

Although the winless run now stands at ten, the performance against the Swans, who are jointly-managed by Nick Cusack who still stands as Quakers' record buy at £95,000 having signed from Motherwell ten years ago, can be considered progress - especially after the lacklustre display at York seven days previous.

Tommy Taylor's team were marginally better in the first half than they were in the second period as the number of scoring opportunities Darlington created far outweighed Swansea's who didn't threaten until the half-hour mark.

And Taylor admitted Darlington wasted their chances.

"We had quite a lot of chances in the first half but unfortunately not many of them were on target," said Taylor, who made five changes to the side which lost at York.

"We definitely had our chances today, we had the ball in the box enough but we've got to get into this club people who want to get forward and score goals. "The game was too easy for us in the first half. All it would have taken would have been someone to be sloppy and they could've scored.

"We need to be more nasty in midfield we need to be ruthless with teams. When you push teams backwards, like we did today, you've got to make it count." Darlington missed chance after chance in the opening 30 minutes with the fit-again Richard Hodgson and Mark Ford both going close while Glenn Naylor, starting his first game since May last year, was also involved heavily.

Naylor's attempted lob after just two minutes lacked height while Hodgson displayed a neat bit of trickery shortly afterwards in the visitors' penalty area, only to lift the ball over both the goalkeeper and crossbar.

Ford was at the centre of a quick surge upfield on 18 minutes when he sent Hodgson racing up the left-flank. The diminutive winger dribbled past a static defender before pulling the ball back to the onrushing Ford, but with time and space on his side the former Leeds midfielder was unable to control the ball.

But Quakers were soon back into the Swans' penalty area as Hodgson charged towards goal but his shot was blasted directly at Roger Freestone in the visitors' goal. Darlington continued in the same vein for the majority of the half, with Paul Heckingbottom putting two free headers over the bar Minutes later the pick of the chances came Ford's way, but his 12-yard effort was comfortably saved by Freestone.

Former Quaker John Williams almost notched a flukey goal for Swansea. Porter raced out of his goal to meet a through-ball and had to be strong in the tackle as he met the lanky Williams 20 yards outside the Darlington penalty area. But thankfully for Quakers the ball ricocheted over the byline for a goal kick.

Swansea made more of an effort in the second half and on the hour Porter made an impressive save low to his right after Jonathan Coates pulled the trigger from 12 yards.

However, Darlington were still the better side and looked more dangerous in front of goal although for a long period shots on goal became sparse. With the game there for the taking, Mark Sheeran almost did just that - twice.

In the 80th minute he stooped to meet a fine Neil Wainwright cross, but the substitute's header flew inches over the bar and four minutes later he scooped the ball over an empty goal after Freestone had dropped a cross.

And with seconds remaining Wainwright let fly with a vicious effort from 35 yards which walloped off the advertising hoarding just yards from Swansea's goal. The off-target effort was one of ten Quakers put wide on Saturday compared to just four on target.

But it is a measure of Darlington's form of late that this statistic didn't prevent the team from being treated to rapturous applause from the supporters as the players left the pitch at full-time.

That response to a good, but never outstanding, display said a lot about Darlington's recent results and performances. Nevertheless, Darlington did look a better side than they have recently and that alone offers some hope for the future.

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