Written by William Brooks
Portsmouth Men’s First Team endured a torrid start to their pre-season campaign with a 1 – 7 defeat at home to the University of Surrey.
On a dreary afternoon at Langstone, Portsmouth found themselves 3 – 0 down within the first twenty minutes as their backline struggled to cope with the physicality and quickness of Surrey’s attackers.
Portsmouth players watch Surrey celebrate. Photography by William Brooks.
Things went from bad to worse for Portsmouth when Louis Udeh was shown a second yellow for a clumsy challenge to Sam Head inside the penalty area. Head duly sent Dyl Kramer the wrong way from the spot to put his side 4 – 0 up with a man advantage. Straight from the restart, the lively Trevor Caborn bullied his man off the ball and slotted home to seal his hat-trick after just half an hour played.
The afternoon skies blackened and the subsequent downpour reflected the glum atmosphere on the pitch. Conditions worsened as the first half fizzled out, with visibility reduced and the ball skidding off the 3G surface, making passages of play and moments of quality hard to come by.
Portsmouth used the break to readjust their shape and came out much more positively in the second half. By this time the rain had subsided and, despite their one man disadvantage, the boys put together some nice flowing moves, mostly concentrating on overloading the left flank.
Portsmouth’s Marco De Sousa grew into the game and created an opening after a mazy run-in from the left, only to send his shot straight at the thankful Luke Roberts. Surrey retorted with Nathan Hogan striking the underside of the crossbar with a fierce drive on 73 minutes.
Surrey had taken their foot off the accelerator since the restart due to the scale of their advantage, but they found it in themselves to reassert their quality in the final 15 minutes. Again Trevor Caborn was proving too much for the Portsmouth defence to handle, driving fiercely through the centre before converting a low and hard effort to Kramer’s right. But he wasn’t done there – notching his fifth of the afternoon on the stroke of normal time with a simple tap-in at the far post.
In the dying embers of the game, Portsmouth’s Will Peters managed a consolation goal to give the hosts something to take from a difficult afternoon.
Elsewhere the 2’s, 3’s and 4’s were all in action taking on their Surrey counterparts and provided some positive news, with the 2’s and 4’s both securing 3 – 2 wins, while the 3’s ran out 2 – 1 winners to cap a day of mixed fortunes.
댓글