It was the type of chance that John Marquis has gobbled up for fun in recent weeks.
But Christian Burgess showed poacher’s instincts of his own to secure all three points for Pompey at Bolton.
The defender was first to react when a header from fellow centre-back Sean Raggett was parried away.
It opened his account for the season and helped keep the Blues firmly in the League One promotion hunt.
Burgess said: “The keeper just parried the ball straight to me and left me with a tap-in, so it was a bit of luck that I was in the right place.
“But it’s important for other players to chip in throughout the season and we’ve also started scoring more from set-pieces.
“There haven’t been as many as we would have liked, but we seem to have got that right recently and the delivery from Steve Seddon was really good.
"The keeper just parried the ball straight to me and left me with a tap-in, so it was a bit of luck that I was in the right place."
“It’s up to us now to keep attacking those spaces and score more goals when the balls come into the box.
“You’re not always going to see free-flowing football at this stage of the season and different conditions pose different threats.
“But the goal came at a decent time late in the first half to give us confidence, although Bolton came out stronger after the break.
“Their league position doesn’t reflect the side they have, with some really experienced players. We gave them the respect they deserve.
“It is a tough place to come, but everyone worked hard all over the pitch and we deserved the victory.
“We can all share in that success because it was a great team effort. We dug in and are really happy to get the win and clean sheet.”
There were 1,846 Pompey fans who made the trip up to the University of Bolton Stadium and they made themselves heard throughout.
Burgess said: “We were pleased for them because they were there in numbers and made a massive amount of noise.”