THE Magpies should have won after creating enough chances to win two matches.

But sluggish defending allowed the hosts two goals and in the end bizarre refereeing twice denied Chorley a winning goal in the closing stages.

Warrington scored in their first real attack on 12 minutes, David Tickle surprisingly out-jumping keeper John Gillies to head in.

Chorley's equaliser arrived on 40 minutes, a superb Matty Woods through-ball enabling Jamie Vermiglio to shoot unstoppably into the bottom corner.

However, Town's Michael Heverin was allowed to stride through a flimsy defence to restore his side's lead before the break.

The second half was dominated by the Magpies and Daniel Douglas-Pringle twice went close as Chorley applied pressure.

But it needed leading scorer David Eatock to come off the bench and grab the equaliser with ten minutes to go.

With time running out a brilliant solo run by Eatock ended when he was clearly tripped cutting in on goal but the referee inexplicably failed to award the penalty and then the official further incensed the visitors' supporters by disallowing a scrambled 'goal' for Chorley in a melee in front of the Warrington net.

Failure to win run-of-the-mill games like this one continues to threaten the Magpies' survival and manager John Hughes' priority must be to stiffen what is looking an increasingly ponderous defence.