Darlington failed to beat Chorley for the seventh successive game when they went down 3-2 to the set piece kings at Blackwell Meadows on Saturday.
Quakers were on course for three points when they led 2-1 at half time, but despite having a man sent off, the visitors scored two set-piece goals in the second half.
Watson, who was without five players for various reasons, said that his team couldn’t cope with Chorley’s prowess at dead-ball situations.
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He said: “The biggest disappointment is that Chorley are one of the best teams in the league at set-plays. They scored 55 per cent of their goals last season from set-plays.
“We were totally aware of that; we worked on it in training. But on the pitch, unfortunately, we weren’t good enough in that respect. We gave goals away, we gave them chances to load the box and that is the biggest disappointment.
“We had more than enough of the ball and we had more than enough quality to make our possession count a lot more.
“We played well until that point, we scored two good goals in the first half, and we went in at half time in a position in which you would like to have kicked on. We should have had more than enough to win the game, but you must do everything right at the other end, but unfortunately we didn’t.
“I heard some real doom and gloom coming in, and I thought to myself that yes, it was really disappointing in the second half.
“But nobody is getting relegated today, or winning the league today or getting into the play offs today. It’s a long gruelling season with plenty of ups and downs. I’ve got to look at it that way, I know we’ve got enough to bounce back.”
Quakers looked on course for their first win over Chorley since February 2022 at half time.
They took the lead on 12 minutes, when Will McGowan cleverly found Cedric Main in the area, and he turned quickly to beat Matt Urwin with a low left foot shot. Jack Maskell nearly made it 2-0, but his deflected effort came back off the post.
Chorley, who had arrived late for the game because of a motorway accident, resulting in kick-off being delayed more than half an hour, got back into the game when Tom Carr scored with a left foot shot from a Warren Clarke pass.
The game looked as if it was turning Quakers’ way on 39 minutes when Chorley’s Milan Lalkovic threw a punch at Scott Barrow and was red-carded, and Quakers used their man advantage to go 2-1 up just on half time when Barrow’s determination to keep the ball in play on the left ended with him crossing into the area, where the ball was partly cleared for Will Hatfield to drive home.
But Chorley re-organised in the second half, and levelled on 51 minutes, when a corner was swung into the area and Jack Sampson found the space to volley past Pete Jameson into the net.
They scored from another set-piece on 69 minutes. A free kick came in from the left, and Scott Wilson had the space to score from a few yards out.
Quakers struggled to create clear openings against a packed defence and Will McGowan had a shot charged down after Hatfield set him up.
And in the last minute of stoppage time, Tom Allan’s effort was deflected off a defender and struck the post, the ball bouncing back into the keeper’s hands.
