Portsmouth welcomed the newly formed Hounslow to the PMC Stadium as both sought to pick up their first points of the season. Portsmouth lost their opening game against Watford, while Miguel De’Souza’s Hounslow have received a bit of a baptism of fire with tough games against Yeovil Town and Crawley Wasps.
The game was barely a mintue old before the home side opened the scoring through former Reading striker, Tamsin de Bunsen. I’d love to describe the goal to you but I completely missed it after greeting friends in the opposite end of the pitch but by all accounts the goal came from a bit of a defensive mix up.
Based on Hounslow’s previous games I feared that their heads would drop but instead the visitors quickly re-grouped and led by captain Jeta Bytyqi, they frustrated Portsmouth who struggled to break them down. It took a moment of brilliance on 35 minutes when Becki Bath scored with a perfectly placed finish from outside the box. Hounslow again re-organised and comfortably saw out the half.
The visitors came down from London with a bare eleven so despite their best efforts I thought that they could be vulnerable towards the latter stages of the game.
In the 58th minute Tamsin de Bunsen was put through on goal and showed great compsure to hold off the defender, round the keeper and tuck the ball away with her left foot. Half a dozen Hounslow players sank to the ground in disappointment.
The defence could do very little about Portsmouth’s next goal. Centre midfielder, Jade Bradley, let rip an absolute rocket that Kasirye could do nothing about.
Portsmouth are awarded a penalty when Charmaine True was fouled. No one appeared to be rushing to get the ball and with regular taker, Katie James, absent I thought that we might have had another Pogba/Rashford incident. Becki Bath eventually stepped up and dispathed the penalty for her second of the game.
On 73 minutes Portsmouth manager Jay Sadler decided this was the perfect moment to hand a debut to 16-year-old Mia Adaway. Making her the youngest player to play for the club.
A minute after Adaway’s introduction, Portsmouth stretched their lead further when Charmaine True scores her first goal of the season by slotting the ball through the keepers legs. Ten minutes later True added a seventh with a beautiful lob.
Subsitute, Eilidh Currie, the former youngest player to pull on the blue shirt of Pompey, sealed the win with an eighth.
It was all very harsh on De’Souza and his team. Everyone involved have done fantastically well to launch a new club and it was always going to be a huge the challenge in such a competative league. While they will be disappointed by the result they will know that the most important games of their season will come against the sides around them at the foot of the table.
Portsmouth: Burns; Younger, Southgate (c), Ingram, Bradley, Rowe, Lee-Stewart, Bath; Bridge, de Bunsen, True
Sub: Tonks, Currie, Adaway, Widdows
Hounslow: Kasirye, Hinchcliffe, Vines, Humble, Brown, Tucker, Castro, Bytyqi (c), Rabin, Nebbit, Kumaning
