A GOALLESS draw at Leyton Orient on Tuesday night did little to erase the memory of a truly awful Quakers display at home to Torquay United last Saturday.

The fact that a point and a clean sheet against a team sitting second from bottom in the league could be seen as progress shows how bad Darlington were in the 3-1 defeat to the Gulls.

Tommy Taylor's men never looked like scoring at Brisbane Road as their winless run stretched to six games, but a defence missing Craig Liddle and Gary Pearson through injury at least managed to keep out a home attack which included former Quakers target Iyseden Christie.

Christie looked dangerous, but young David McGurk put in an impressive display at left back as Darlington held out.

Taylor also brought back Neil Wainwright and Paul Campbell to replace Danny Mellanby and Neil Maddison, who almost snatched victory for Quakers after coming on for Mark Sheeran - himself a substitute for the injured Barry Conlon after 20 minutes.

The Darlington manager was jeered by the Orient fans on his return to his old stamping ground, but was happy to leave with a point after his side's abysmal performance at Feethams last Saturday.

Torquay, who had previously won only once on their travels, should have had the game sewn up before they finally took the lead through Alex Russell after 24 minutes.

The goal was created by Richard Logan, who had failed to find the net from three one-on-one encounters with Darlington keeper Keith Finch.

Russell scored again on the hour, before Ian Clark gave the home fans some hope with a good finish nine minutes later.

But an equaliser never looked likely and Russell completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot in injury time to make sure of the three points.

The Feethams faithful will surely not tolerate a similar performance in the next home game against Macclesfield Town on Tuesday night, which follows a long and difficult trip to Exeter City tomorrow.