Southport 1 Darlington 1

Platt 5 mins, 0-1, Sze (pen) 15 mins, 1-1

Southport’s early tactic was to test Quakers with long throws from the left through Tom Moore, but Quakers managed to deal with them.

Tom Allen won the first corner on 5 minutes and Quakers scored from it. The ball was curled over by Tom Tweedy over to the far post where Tom Platt poked the ball home for his first league goal of the season.

There was nearly a second on 10 minutes when Tom Tweedy found plenty of space on the left to play a diagonal ball over to the far post, where Tom Allan fired into the side netting.

Southport tried to counter through MacKenzie down the right, but Scott Barrow got back and won a goal kick.

But Southport won a penalty on 15 minutes when they played the ball forward to the edge of the Darlington box where Chris Sze tried to control the ball, but the referee said that he was impeded by Rory Watson and pointed to the spot. Sze sent the keeper the wrong way

Quakers had a great chance on 20 minutes when Tweedy found McLaughlin on the overlap in the box, and he chipped the ball into the middle where Allan tried to chest the ball down, but could only put the ball into the keeper’s hands

Darlington covered well on 25 minutes when Sze found Jordan Slew in plenty of space on the left, but Quakers got back in numbers to block his shot.

Quakers were back on 26 minutes when Platt found Cedric Main on the right of the box, and he sidestepped a defender before hitting a right foot shot from an acute angle that hit the bar with Renshaw beaten.

After the lively Tweedy and Barrow had shots charged down, Quakers won a corner that Southport cleared at the near post.

And they nearly scored from an inswinging free kick by Tweedy from the right that Forbes just failed to get a touch on, and nevertheless the ball went just past the post.

However, Southport broke away through Sze, who beat a defender, but fortunately Watson read his shot and saved down to his right

Half time 1-1

Team: 

Watson, Forbes, Lees, Barrow, Platt, McLaughlin, Allan, Stanton, Tweedy, Rutledge, Main

Subs: Mason, Griffiths, Hedley, Howells, Scott, Myers-Smith, Maskell

Booking Lees foul 23, Rutledge foul 33