After a wretched afternoon at Newhaven the week before, the Magpies returned home looking to put an end to their recent run of poor results, and welcomed Worthing United to The Nest. After an appeal of his red card 7 days earlier, Eddie French's suspension was upheld, which saw Ollie Gill come into the back line in his stead. The only other change saw 16 year old Josh Neathey come in for his first start in senior football.
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The hosts got off to a perfect start when as early as the 3rd minute a flowing move eventually saw Byron Napper lay the ball square to Daniel-Jordan Dominique who delivered a perfectly flighted ball to the back post where Dean Wright arrived at pace and volleyed past Matt Evans in the United goal. (see video footage below)

​The visitors could have restored parity just 2 minutes later when Lindon Miller turned sharply on the edge of the area and shot toward goal, but Sam Smith got down well at his near post to palm it away. In the 10th minute Dominique was at the forefront again with another high quality delivery from the right. This time Neathey got on the end of it, but his looping headed effort over Evans narrowly dropped the wrong side of the crossbar.

The game settled down after that with both sides thwarting any meaningful attacking play with ease, until Harry Bachelor applied good pressure on the Worthing defence and the resulting misplaced clearance came to Neathey who let fly from 20 yards, but it flew over. It wasn't long before the youngster was involved again though as 3 minutes later he neatly slipped Michael Wood away and his dangerous delivery from out wide was sliced just over his own goal by Omar Bukleb.

​The visitor's best effort, arguably of the whole match, came on the half hour mark when their most promising threat, Deji Alabi, wriggled his way into the area and although the angle was narrow he forced Smith into an excellent save to tip the ball onto the bar and behind. From the resulting corner the Magpies struggled to strike a meaningful clearance and they were nearly punished on a couple of occasions but were bailed out by brave blocks from Gill and Jordan Warren. That proved to be the end of any meaningful action before the break where the hosts were good value for their lead, but knew that their opponents were going to be a threat as they sought to get back into the game.

​Despite a great deal of endeavour at the start of the second period, the two sides were cancelling each other out in the midfield and without any clear sights of goal the tension was beginning to rise in both ranks and this came to a head in the 66th minute with a classic bout of handbags breaking out that saw three players, including Gill, booked for their involvement. This appeared to bring a bit of freedom to the game, although 1 minute later Napper was a little too free and loose with his back pass to Smith, which Miller intercepted, but he wasted the opportunity by dragging his shot wide.

​The Magpies looked as though they would double their lead in the 73rd minute when a neat move saw Wright play a ball diagonally into the box for Joe Holvey to run on to, but Karim Bukleb did extremely well to extend a leg and poke the ball behind before the substitute to fire. With 10 minutes to go, Alabi popped up again on the edge of the area and after working some space for himself he got a shot off, but Gill did very well to half block the effort and the ball trickled harmlessly through to Smith.

​Both sides could have scored in the 88th minute: Firstly Luke Robinson sliced his volley high and wide from a deep free kick and then the hosts went straight up the other end and worked the ball well out to Wood, but he was another to drag their shot wide. As the game moved into added time, the visitors threw numbers forward but could only muster an easily gathered header from James Wotherspoon and a highly ambitious 35-yard drive by Craig Nagle that Smith watched go wide. The final action of the game in the 96th minute saw Josh Courtney snuff out a Dean Sherwood effort, to cap what was a highly efficient display by the Magpies defence and saw them gain their both their first win and clean sheet since 9th December.
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Team: ​Bachelor (Holvey 68), Courtney, Dominique (Jardim 55), Gill, Napper, J Neathey (Moore 68), Smith, Swaine, Warren, Wood & Wright  
Subs not used: ​Barr & Lloyd