Quakers missed several good chances and had strong penalty claims turned down, which means they are six points below the play-off positions with a hectic schedule of 16 games in nine playing weeks to come.
While goalkeeper Peter Jameson made three good saves near the end, Quakers could have made the game safe well before then, especially if they had been awarded what manager Steve Watson termed a “nailed-on” penalty in the second half for a foul on Cedric Main.
“I thought we should have won the game,” he said. “We’ve had the big chances to win it, they were three excellent chances that we haven’t managed to put away.
“We got better in the second half. We were messy in the first half and didn’t take enough care with our passing. We got better as the game went on.
“I thought we defended well and put our bodies on the line, and Pete Jameson made the kind of saves that I would expect him to.
“I thought we had a pretty much a nailed-on penalty in the second half. The only way to stop Cedric was to pull him down. I think the referee and the linesman were the only people in the stadium who didn’t see that one.
“But we got a clean sheet, a point away from home, and are disappointed that we didn’t come home with all three.”
Southport started the game sharper and Jameson had to make two comfortable saves from efforts by Sonny Hilton and Danny Lloyd, but Quakers steadily got into the match.
The pace of Middlesbrough loanee Hazeem Bakre kept the Southport defence on its toes, and a panicked clearance by keeper Chris Renshaw rebounded off him, but wide of the post.
The teenager nearly scored on 22 minutes when Matty Cornish squeezed the ball through to him inside the area, he held off his man and fired against the crossbar.
Then Will Hatfield won the ball on the edge of the area and set up Cornish who fired straight at Renshaw.
In the second half, Main missed a great chance when his pace took him away from the Southport defence to go one-on-one against Renshaw, but he fired straight at the keeper.
They had another good chance on 65 minutes when a careful build-up on the left saw Scott Barrow, who was just off target a few minutes before, float the ball into the middle for Bakre to side-foot wide from six yards.
But then came the moment that caused the post-match controversy. Main danced through the Southport defence into the penalty area where he seemed to be brought down by a desperate defender, but the referee, much to Darlington’s anger, waved play on.
Southport came on strong in the closing stages. Jameson saved at full stretch from Southport substitute Arthur Gnahoua, then Barrow somehow managed to clear a powerful shot by Lloyd off the line.
Jameson saved at full stretch again from Lloyd, before Darlington replacement Jack Maskell was just off target with a glancing header right at the end.
