PORTLAND United manager Simon Browne admitted he was “happy” to have finally ended the Blues’ winless run with an impressive 3-1 away success over ten-man Alresford Town.

Browne’s men had endured a seven-game stretch in the Sydenhams Wessex Premier Division without bagging three points.

But they brought that sequence to an end with goals from Alex Godfrey, Sanchez Baker and Jamie Beasley, despite Ross Doidge missing a penalty.

Following a 5-2 League Cup defeat to Amesbury Town in midweek, Browne told Echosport he was “pleased” that his players rectified their poor run of results.

He said: “I’m just happy we played well and we deserved to win. It wasn’t difficult for any of them to be better than Tuesday.

“We started brightly and on the front foot. A few of them that did play Tuesday realised it wasn’t good enough and needed a result.

“I’m pleased for them that they got a win. They’ve set a standard and it’s something we’ve got to stick to.”

Assessing the game, Browne feared that the Blues might concede another late equaliser.

“We went 1-0 up, Jamie had a swing at it and Godders knocked it in – that was no more than we deserved.

“We got a chance to go 2-0 up when Sanchez Baker was brought down in the box for a penalty. Unfortunately Ross knocked it tamely at the keeper. It was a bit frustrating because we let them off the hook,” he said.

“Sanchez then drew a foul from their defender, he was sent off for two yellow cards and they went down to 10 men for the second half, then we conceded about six or seven minutes into the half.

“It was a ball into the box and it hit Charlie Holland and went into the net. We got back into it with a good move, Ryan (McKechnie) put Sanchez in and we went 2-1 up.

“I did have the fear that we were going to concede another late equaliser but the back four held firm and we broke away and Jamie scored from the left flank,” he added.

And Browne now has his eyes set on a week of training before going “to battle” against Sholing.

He said: “We’ve had a couple of dodgy results and performances but we’ve got no midweek game.

“We can do a couple of training sessions and we’ll go into the Sholing game ready to go to battle. That will be a stern test for us next weekend.”

Blues: Boore, Smith, S Buckler, Bessant, Holland, Beasley, McKechnie, Doidge (Clarke 75), Mitchell (Halloran 60), Baker, Godfrey. Subs not used: Diaz, Payne, Lillington

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