CHORLEY let two more home points slip against bottom of the table Whitley Bay, who survived a rocky first half hour before effectively putting up the shutters.

That the Magpies lack the killer instinct at Victory Park is all too obvious from their record of 28 points collected on tour and just 12 at home.

Their hospitality on this occasion extended to a missed penalty in the opening minutes, though such was Chorley's early dominance that it did not seem to matter.

But when Ian Gibson curled a superb free kick over the visitors' defensive wall and the ball rebounded harmlessly from the inside of the post and then Bay's Geoff Stephenson sliced a Paul Fleming cross on to his own crossbar, it suddenly looked as if it might not be Chorley's lucky day.

After an incident-packed first 30 minutes, Chorley faded dramatically as an effective attacking force, with the trickery of Neil Mitchell, one of three players suspended, badly missed.

In a totally lacklustre second half, Bay's priority was quite clearly to keep a clean sheet at all costs and the Magpies lacked the guile to open up a packed defence.

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