It was a 10th successive home victory that sent Pompey up to third position in the League One standings.
Goals from Ryan Williams, Steve Seddon and Christian Burgess secured a 3-0 victory over Rochdale at Fratton Park.
But the opener did not come until the final stages of a mostly soporific first half display on the wet and windy south coast.
And Kenny Jackett was delighted that his in-form side kept battling to eventually force a way through.
The Blues boss said: “I thought we’d have to work extremely hard to get the win – and that’s exactly what we did.
“They had a few chances, but my keeper was up to it and Henderson also hit the bar, but we knew they’d be a threat.
"I thought we’d have to work extremely hard to get the win – and that’s exactly what we did."
“In terms of the number of chances, though, we had more. It was a quiet first half, but then we got the goal and Andy Cannon had one cleared off the line.
“We had more after the break and just couldn’t get the second one, which made life difficult and we had to defend well.
“There was always going to be a tough period – especially with the wind – and we had to hang in there.
“We eventually got two more goals and could have had more, although credit to Rochdale for making sure it was hard-fought.
“I always felt that we would win the game and by the end, I thought that we thoroughly deserved the result.
“We do have a couple of knocks, with Ronan Curtis and perhaps Tom Naylor, but I’m sure they’ll be okay.”
The one sour note for Pompey was a 10th booking of the season for Christian Burgess, which means the defender is banned for the next two league games.
Jackett said: “Suspensions and injuries do happen in football and that’s something you understand, but we have Jack Whatmough, which is good news.”