Bury 0, Crystal Palace 0

IS there a welcome light at the end of the tunnel for the Shakers or is it some fool messing around with a torch?

Only time - and the remaining 12 games - will tell, but encouragingly there was something of the Bury of old about this performance.

Okay, so a solitary home point against a crisis-torn Palace side wouldn't have been high on chairman Terry Robinson's gift list on his birthday, but there could be no denying the men from Gigg Lane deserved all three points from this stalemate.

As it was the draw was enough to take them out of the relegation places and into the fourth from bottom slot that manager Neil Warnock admits he'd settle for come May.

The Shakers could, and should, have been three or four goals up in the first half alone as they put their South London opponents on the rack but once again the lack of firepower that has plagued the club all season continued to deny them their rightful reward.

The closest they came to breaking the deadlock arrived after 15 minutes when the Chris Billy - who silenced the boo-boys with his best performance yet - crashed a vicious 25-yarder against Kevin Miller's left hand post. "If you're top of the league they go in," said a rueful Warnock.

"But you have to make your own luck. The pleasing thing was that there were 14 lads out that committed to the cause.

"It's the teams with spirit that will survive the drop and now we've got to show that week in, week out. You wouldn't have thought we hadn't won for 12 games on that performance."

It was a fair appraisal from the Shakers' chief as the result halted a run of four successive defeats.

Goalkeeper Dean Kiely won't have had many quieter afternoons having only one noteworthy save to make, superly turning over a swerving drive from David Tuttle midway through the first period.

But that effort apart it was Bury who held the whip hand and at the break they must have been wondering just what they had to do to score.

Leading marksman Laurent D'Jaffo saw a powerful goalbound shot blocked by the arm of Craig Moore and on-loan Paul Serrant, whose quality balls into the box were a constant menace for the Eagles, brought the best out of Miller with a stinging drive that he collected at the second attempt.

A classy performer like Serrant looks well capable of doing a repeat of the splendid job Bryan Small did in the final third of last season and what a useful acquisition it would be if his loan period could be extended to the end of the campaign.

"That was the real Carl Serrant that I had at Oldham," said Warnock. "He really should be playing in the Premier League and not the reserves. I just told him to go out and enjoy himself and he was great both going forward and defensively."

The Newcastle United loan star turned provider seven minutes before the interval when another pinpoint cross found the head of D'Jaffo but the unmarked Frenchman could only tamely direct his header straight at a grateful Miller.

While the second half wasn't as productive from Bury's point of view Palace never looked likely to breach a home defence that had a far more solid look than of late.

Ever-dependable skipper Chris Lucketti and the resolute Chris Swailes partnered born-again Steve Redmond in the back line and the trio never gave former Manchester City misfit Lee Bradbury a sniff of a chance throughout the 90 minutes.

Fleet-footed Adrian Littlejohn entered the fray late in the game and almost grabbed a winner seven minutes from time.

When D'Jaffo dispossessed former Rangers star Gordon Petric in the Palace half the ball broke kindly for Littlejohn who ran at the back-tracking defenders before firing a powerful low shot that went inches past Miller's far post.

"I think Steve Coppell will have been pleased to come away with a point," added Warnock.

"I thought we played some cracking stuff, we were composed, played it across the park and got some decent crosses in.

"It's a big lift for everyone to get off the 31 point mark. Our target now is to stay above the bottom three."

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