MOXON TO RESCUE AS RAMS ARE THWARTED
ALL eyes were on Fratton Park on Tuesday night as Portsmouth met Derby in a top-of-the-table showdown – and it didn’t disappoint.
Joe Ward fired home to give the visiting Rams a 23rd minute lead, but it was all-square four minutes later when Abu Kamara coolly slotted home. That man Ward cracked home his second of the night on 35 minutes to put Derby back in front.
It looked as though it might be enough to earn the second-placed Rams maximum points. However, Owen Moxon rifled home a superb strike from distance to earn table-topping Pompey a share of the spoils in front of a bumper 20,000 crowd.
Portsmouth boss John Mousinho said: “Having gone behind twice, it always feels a decent point and on the whole it was a pretty good performance against a top side.
“It was probably the loudest I’ve heard it at Fratton Park and the fans responded brilliantly whenever we fell behind.
“Our first goal was a brilliant move and the second was also excellent, albeit completely different with a strike from outside the box.”
His Rams counterpart Paul Warne said: “I thought, overall, our performance was pretty good and the place was bouncing. This amount of people turning up to watch a game in the third tier is a joke!
“I’m just disappointed that we’ve dropped two points from a 30-yard screamer. It felt like they’d got to a stage where they’d ran out of ideas and we always looked dangerous on the counter-attack.
“I have nothing but pride and that point could be massive come the end of the season.”
The previous day Bolton had kept up the pressure on the top two with a thumping 5-2 win against Reading. Aaron Collins hit a hat-trick and Jon Dadi Bodvarsson netted the other two for the Trotters.
The other sides in the top six – Peterborough, Barnsley and Lincoln – all won. Posh triumphed 2-1 at Leyton Orient, while the Tykes and the Imps were 3-1 victors at Burton and Carlisle respectively. Sub John McAtee scored twice for Barnsley as they came from behind at the break.
Mark Harris bagged a double as play-off chasing Oxford swept Fleetwood aside 4-0, while Gassan Ahadme did likewise for Cambridge in their 3-1 win against Wigan.
Other results: Blackpool 0 Wycombe 0; Bristol R 0 Shrewsbury 0; Charlton 0 Stevenage 0; Cheltenham 1 Exeter 2; Northampton 2 Port Vale 0.