A goalless draw at home to Swansea City can never be considered anything to be proud of and on Saturday that certainly applied, but, rather refreshingly, Darlington were disappointed with the point.

Darlington made plenty of good attacking moves, tested the visiting keeper on several occasions, kept the Swansea forwards quiet for large periods and, for once, Quakers' performance warranted all three points.

After weeks of defeats of poor displays and defeats the teamwork made a refreshing change while the performances of Adam Reed, David McGurk and debutante goalkeeper Chris Porter were all greatly appreciated.

Although the run without a win now stands at ten and the last five matches have spawned just two Darlington goals, both coming in a 4-2 defeat at Exeter.

But the performance against the Swans, 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 previously.

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." Quakers have now gone 298 minutes since hitting the back of the net so perhaps in future Darlington would 'make it count' if they had some shooting lessons under the guidance of fan Phil Mulrooney.

During the half-time Hit The Bar competition Mr Mulrooney demonstrated a coolness under pressure and a deadeye for goal as, with his first kick of a football for 20 years, he struck the crossbar with a rasping drive.

The same kind of accuracy wouldn't go amiss in Taylor's side as 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 and shortly afterwards Hodgson displayed a neat bit of trickery in the visitors' penalty area but he lifted the ball over the goalkeeper and crossbar.

Ford was at the centre of a quick surge upfield on 18 minutes when sent Hodgson racing up the left-flank and 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 Swan's penalty area as Hodgson, who enjoyed a very productive first half but relatively quite second period, charged towards goal but his shot was blasted directly at Roger Freestone in the visitors' goal who partners Cusack as joint caretaker-managers.

Darlington continued in the same vein for the majority of the half with Paul Heckingbottom putting two headers over the bar however, the pick of the chances came Ford's way but Freestone was equal to his powerful 12-yard effort although 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 and thankfully for Quakers the ball ricocheted over the byline.

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.

But Darlington were still the better side and looked more dangerous in front of goal although for large periods shots on goal became sparse until the final ten minutes.

With the game there for the taking, Mark Sheeran almost did just that - twice. With ten minutes to play 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.

Now, has anyone got Mr Mulrooney's phone number?

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