Live Commentary

Match Report

Darlington were full value for their away point on a day when Notts County were desperate to get all three in front of their Meadow Lane fans.

Notts started brightly enough, following up their mid-week success over Doncaster, but the final touch was missing and visiting goalkeeper Simon Brown was largely a spectator.

An early example of the way Notts failed to capitalise on promising situations came in the 17th minute when new boy Matt Hamshaw put Delroy Facey through the middle and he shot wide when the better option was to feed the ball through to Jamie Forrester.

Kevin Pilkington, compared to Brown, was constantly in action. From an Adam Griffin corner on 22 minutes, big central defender Steve Foster got in a powerful header which Pilkington turned over his bar.

Then Pilkington saved from Griffin three minutes later when the Darlington man should probably have done better with his finishing effort.

The hardest of hard lines fell to Adam Proudlock eleven minutes before the break.

A fierce drive from the edge of the area was met by Pilkington who touched it onto his crossbar and saw it clear to safety.

Two minutes later, Darlington had even harder lines when Proudlock delivered a rasping effort which beat Pilkington and struck the inside of the keeper's right-hand post before bouncing to safety.

Having kept the scores even to the break, Notts came out looking to break the deadlock at the start of the second half.

From the first of five corners in the new period, Michael Johnson got up well to direct a header against the bar - the nearest Notts came to their first home league goal.

After that neither side seriously threatened and the longer it went the more it became obvious that one goal would be sufficient to win it.

Corners

Fouls

Goal attempts

Shots off target

Offsides