FORMER Weymouth player and manager Steve Claridge admitted his side Salisbury “were fortunate to get through” as Portland exited the FA Cup to a single-goal defeat despite dominating large periods of a pulsating second qualifying round tie, played out in front of a bumper 534 crowd at the Weyline Stadium.

The Salisbury boss acknowledged that the Blues should be “massively disappointed” not to get anything out of the game and added, “They had two or three great chances in the second half, and although we didn’t play as well as we can, that’s not to the detriment of Portland, who fully deserved something.”

Meanwhile, Blues’ boss Brendon King was naturally very proud of his charges’ contribution to a cracking tie against opponents ranked 53 places higher in the non-League pyramid..

Afterwards he summed up his side’s afternoon when he said: “At the start we said to the boys just stay in the game, let’s not disgrace ourselves as we know we are a good side. But now, when I look back, I’m really, really gutted we didn’t get something out of it. Another day and we get the goal and go back there.”

Ultimately the Blues succumbed to a Toby Holmes strike just before the interval and when asked how he lifted his charges at the break in the face of such disappointment, King replied: “The goal completely changed the dynamic of my half-time talk.

“They were down but I just said, I think we are the better team here and we know we are going to get more chances.

“We need to believe that and, we so nearly got something – they were a credit to us and the club.”