'Luck was with Pompey on potentially pivotal afternoon'

Saturday afternoon was by a country mile Pompey's best win away from home all season, but also could prove to be an incredibly consequential result in the context of our fight for survival.

There is something so magical about a Portsmouth fan and academy product scoring one of the most significant winners of the campaign during his second spell at the club.

The scenes in the away end were completely out of this world. Five and a half hours from home and a near 650 mile round trip, worth each and every second for that one special moment.

Our Friday night drive to Teesside was punctuated by road closure after road closure resulting in our arrival in the small hours of Saturday morning. As we watched Pompey come under siege time and time again throughout the 90 minutes, the feeling was very much that one of those Boro blows would eventually land, and ruin an already testing weekend.

But the blow never came, and following two game-defining stops from Nicolas Schmid, and an Andre Dozzell block on the line, nothing could breach the Pompey rearguard. Madiodio Dia, during the definition of being 'thrown into the deep end' performed exceptionally well.

And having defended almost constantly since kick-off, from a corner ironically, came our 97th minute moment in the sun. Conor Chaplin on the inadvertent receiving end of an Adrian Segecic goalbound strike. Cue blue blooded chaos at The Riverside.

Our southbound return leg breezed by, and given the length of travel gave an opportunity to digest the day's events fully.

This never normally happens in our favour. It's usually Pompey who suffer the late sickener away from home. That little bit of luck so often goes against us.

On Saturday, the luck was, at long last, given the season we've endured to date, very much with us.

Find more from Tom at the Fournilwrittenalloverit YouTube channel

[BBC]