There were plenty of celebrations when Lee Brown found the bottom corner of the net at Fleetwood.
The defender’s strike was enough to secure all three points for Pompey’s League One opener at Fleetwood.
But it was not the most convincing of performances from the visitors, who had to recover from a sluggish first half display.
Brown admitted that the Blues were well below par and that they had to battle hard to get the job done.
He said: “Of course it was nice to get the win, but we know that the performance wasn’t really there from us.
“Sometimes you have to win ugly – and we certainly did that. The important thing is that we’ve come away with three points.
“We looked a bit leggy and the nine-hour coach journey up to Fleetwood on Friday probably didn’t help.
"We were a bit all over the place and the gaffer made it clear that we couldn’t use any excuses because you win nothing with them."
“Then we obviously lost Shaun Williams in the warm-up and he’s massive, so it probably unsettled us a bit.
“We were a bit all over the place and the gaffer made it clear that we couldn’t use any excuses because you win nothing with them.
“So we wanted to rally around and knew it would be a great result if we won with everything going against us.
“No two halves are the same in football and we were able to find something from somewhere to get over the line.”
It was a sweet finish from Brown, who had also bagged a brace in the penultimate game of the previous season.
He said: “I just shut my eyes and hit it as hard as I could! Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time.
“If you get in those positions enough times, then it will eventually fall for you and I made a good contact.”