Dartford remain in the National League South relegation zone after former boss Alan Dowson failed to mark his return with a win.

Dowson’s Hemel team took a first-half lead on Saturday but Dartford manager Ady Pennock saw his side fight back to end a run of five league defeats in a row.

Hemel had also lost their last six league games so perhaps a stalemate was of little surprise to the 1,310 inside Princes Park.

Dowson had to watch on from the directors’ box as he served a one-match touchline ban for picking up three yellow cards, some of those offences ironically coming earlier in the season while he was in charge of the Darts.

As for Dartford, Pennock handed starts to loan trio Rhys Byrne in goal, Harrison Sodje in defence and Ollie Bray in attack.

Dartford lined-up with a 4-3-3 formation and it was Fumnaya Shomotun who looked their brightest spark in the early exchanges.

He showed good footwork to go past a number of players inside the penalty area in the fifth minute but his goalbound shot was cleared off the line by the alert Chris Smith for Hemel.

Not only was it a return for Dowson, but former Darford forward Pierre Fonkeu was also back at his former club. However, injury cut short his afternoon and he hobbled off inside the first 15 minutes.

Debutant left-back Sodje took time to settle into the game with on-loan Gills man Ike Orji getting plenty of joy down the right for Hemel.

When substitute Giuseppe Iaciofano got past Sodje on 26 minutes, he delivered an excellent ball across the face of goal but no-one was on hand to touch it home.

Dartford had another good opening two minutes later when Paul Rooney kept alive Luke Coulson’s free-kick but Shomotun rushed his right-foot shot and screwed it horribly wide of the upright.

Hemel took the lead on 34 minutes with a lovely-worked goal. A good run forward by George Williams took him clear of the Dartford midfield and his perfectly-weighted ball into Michael Folivi was matched by a deft finish past keeper Byrne.

The visitors looked to take advantage of Dartford’s reluctance to clear the lines - there’s nothing wrong with a 50-yard clearance, especially when you’re in the thick of a relegation battle.

A surging run on the stroke of half-time by Tommy Block gave Dartford encouragement that they could get back into the contest, if only they can add the final piece of the jigsaw as Alex Wall shot horribly over from Block’s lay-off.

Dartford should have equalised within a minute of the restart. Shomotun failed to convert Wall’s cross from 10 yards and when the ball was kept alive by Ronnie Nelson, Rooney’s goalbound effort was brilliantly saved by the feet of keeper Craig King.

The equaliser arrived on 52 minutes when a long free-kick was nodded down by Wall and Rooney reacted quickest to brilliantly find the bottom corner.

Orji got away with a clear shirt pull on Shomotun minutes later in the box, the offence somehow missed by referee Nathan Oakes.

A flurry of yellow cards disrupted Dartford’s flow and Hemel weathered the storm - quite literally a hailstorm as well - to get through to the last 10 minutes without further damage.

With teams around the bottom half of the table winning, Dartford needed to find a winner.

Hemel should have been reduced to 10 men with six minutes left when Dworzak clattered into Maloney. Amazingly the referee decided to give a final warning to a player who picked up a needless yellow card in the first half for kicking the ball away.

But the Darts were unable to fashion another chance and they may yet look back on this one as two points dropped by the end of the season.

Dartford: Byrne, Block, Nelson, Rooney, Sodje, Wynter (Smith 89mins), Maloney, Shomotun, Coulson, Bray, Wall (Allen 79mins). Subs not used: Wray, Statham, Nembhard.

Hemel: King, J Williams, Hill (Re 46mins), G Williams, Gyamfi, Smith, Orji, Folivi (Matthews 78mins), Dworzak, Fonkeu (Iaciofano 16mins), Sendles-White. Subs not used: Macaulay, McKenzie.

Referee: Nathan Oakes.

Attendance: 1,310.