Tommy Taylor's return to former club Leyton Orient ended in stalemate despite Darlington being under pressure for most of the game, but at least Quakers never played as badly as they did against Torquay.

On Saturday Darlington were dreadful and on Tuesday night the division's second-bottom side out-played Quakers for much of the game but Orient failed take their chances while Quakers rarely looked like creating a scoring opportunity.

The result stretched Darlington's winless run to six games but that run never looked like ending as they never looked like scoring.

Gary Pearson failed to recover from a hamstring strain and was replaced by David McGurk while Neil Wainwright and Paul Campbell came in for Danny Mellanby and Neil Maddison reverted to his favoured 4-4-2 after starting with 4-3-3 in Saturday's debacle.

Had it not been for George Reynolds' intervention last week, Iyseden Christie would've played for Quakers at the weekend, but the chairman locked the proposed loan move and, somewhat ironically, Orient handed the pacy striker his first start of the season.

And he showed Darlington what they're missing after ten minutes when he raced past David Brightwell but fired his shot wide.

He came much closer to opening the scoring ten minutes later as his angled left-footed drive was fumbled around the post by Keith Finch and after Wainwright ran the almost the length off the field only to see his cross caught by the keeper, Christie again received the ball in the final third but he saw his excellent delivery cleared.

As the strong played havoc with the quality of the game, Darlington saw little of their opponents' goal in the first half as Quakers were restricted to three long-range efforts but Wainwright's triple effort never looked like troubling Scot Barrett.

Christie has only recently recovered from 18 months on the sidelines with a knee injury but he didn't show any signs of lack of match practice when he received the ball from midfield and hit the net from 16 yards, but unfortunatley for Orient his effort went the wrong side of the post.

The home fans were in uproar just before half-time when Paul Campbell's challenge on Matthew Brazier put an end to the Orient winger's evening, and the Brisbane Road crowd displayed their disgust at Campbell's tackle by yelling 'Taylor out' which was their favourite terrace chant during his five-year reign in East London.

In injury time of a first-half played-out almost exclusively in Darlington's half, Wayne Gray burst into the penalty box but he blasted his shot a yard over Finch's bar.

Shortly after the break Finch pulled-off a marvellous save as Christie found himself one-on-one having beaten the offside trap, and seconds later McGurk stopped a certain goal as Neil Gough was about to prod a slide-rule pass into the empty net but the defender, playing as an unorthodox left-back, slid in to block.

The second half began in the same fashion as the first was played with Orient enjoying most of the possesion, but Minton should've done better than to volley wide with time and space on his side when he was first to react to a knock-down in Darlington's box.

With 20 minutes remaining Taylor sent on Neil Maddison upfront in place of the bemused Mark Sheeran who himself had replaced the injured Barry Conlon after 20 minutes, but the former Middlesbrough star almost scored with his first touch but keeper Barrett pulled-off a full-lentgh save.

With half-an-hour to play, Maddison's effort proved to be the last of the evening as each side produced a scrappy finish to the game, although Orient did their best to throw the game away as they made a couple of errors in defence late on.

But a point was a fair result and one which Taylor hopes to build on when Darlington travel to Exeter on Saturday.

MATCHFACTS

Bookings: Christie Campbell, Ford (all fouls)

Attendance: 3,284

Referee: Clive Wilkes (Gloucester)

LEYTON ORIENT (3-5-2): Barret 7; Hutchings 7, McGhee 6, Smith 7; Lockwood 6; Canham, Harris 7, Minton 6, Brazier 6 (Gough 42, 6); Christie 7, Gray 5 (Watts 66, 6). Subs not used: Bayes (gk), Nugent, Barnard.

DARLINGTON (4-4-2): Finch 6; Harper 6, MCGURK 8, Brightwell 7, Heckingbottom 6; Campbell 6, Ford 7, Atkinson 6, Wainwright 6; Conlon 6 (Sheeran 21, 6 (Maddison 71)), Clark 7. Subs not used: Brumwell, Reed, Hodgson.

MAN OF THE MATCH

DAVID McGurk - Didn't look out of place at left-back

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