When umpires called a stop to play, Nulla were 4-113 in the 29^th over. It was a similar situation to what they were in on October 28 when they fell 1.25 runs short of Taree United.

Captain Gordon Scott was satisfied with the decision from umpires Paul Dilley and Craig Lobegeier to put an end to the match.

“I couldn’t disagree with the umpires decision because it was pretty dark,” he said.

“A couple of the boys in the slips said they hoped catches didn’t come their way because they couldn’t pick the ball up.”

He was disappointed at his teams inability to bounce back from last week’s defeat.

They have now lost two in a row heading into the Christmas break.

“It’s happened again,” Scott said about losing again due to bad light.

“But even if we had have won we wouldn’t have deserved to.”

Port City won the toss, batted first and slumped to 6-65 at drinks before recovering to post 9-147 with Ben Marron (27) and Jesse Schmidt (34) the only batsmen to star.

“They’re the only ones doing anything,” Scott said.

“Now we’re at a point where someone has to go to make a point that no-one’s position is safe.”

The frustrated Magpies captain said he was looking for answers as to why his team had hit the wall in the last couple of weeks.

“The simple basics of cricket are not there right now,” he said.

“I do believe we have the best team on paper in the competition; we’re just not firing at the moment for whatever reason.”

Port City were safely in the top two just two weeks ago – they have now slipped to sixth.

“We’ve gone from the situation where if we had have won the last two games we would have been on top with a game in hand,” Scott said.

“Now we’re sixth and have to do something to get back into those finals spots.”

Out at Andrews Park, Macquarie Hotel and Wauchope RSL again fought out a cliffhanger with the Macca emerging with a two-wicket victory.

Set 162 to win, Tom Salter (20 not out) steered his side to victory with six balls to spare.

It was Wauchope’s third close loss of the season following defeats to Port City (three wickets) and Macquarie (21 runs).

RSL captain Matt Day conceded his side was “probably 10 runs short” of what they required.

“We can’t take a trick at the moment, but it was a close, good game of cricket,” he said.

“Macca’s strength is in their batting and I was really disappointed to get so close and go down the way we did.

“We’re pushing all the top teams; we just can’t get the job done.”

The competition resumes on January 13 following the Christmas-New Year break.