Conor Chaplin felt Pompey were unfortunate not to claim a point at Doncaster - after being lucky not to be three down early on.
Rovers scored two and missed another good opportunity in the first 10 minutes at the Keepmoat Stadium. Later Chaplin helped inspire a Pompey fightback, but it was one that was in vain as it finished 2-1 to the hosts.
Chaplin made his 100th Pompey appearance and hit the woodwork with a free kick. He told The News he was delighted to chalk up treble figures of games: 'It’s a proud achievement. I would have liked to have topped it off with a better result, though, to send the fans home happy. I’m proud of the achievement and there’s a lot of people to thank who’ve helped me along the way.
‘It was disappointing not to score. You know when you hit a free-kick well and I hit it well. It didn’t seem to stop rising, though, and the whip didn’t seem to come until too late. ecause of that it’s probably not gone in and come off the post. It’s frustrating but I’d forgotten about it to be honest and that’s how it will stay.'
He said Pompey had done their best to claim a point but could only blame themselves for the slow start.
Chaplin told The News: ‘It was an unlucky night in a lot of ways, but you can’t expect to give teams two-goal head starts and get something out of the game. In fact, it could’ve been three goals. We had a go, but after you go down to 10 men it’s always going to be hard.
‘We had to have a bit of a reshuffle. We had players out of position, but people’s attitudes were spot on and we want to work for each other. Matty (Kennedy) ended up going left-back, there was me left wing and Oli (Hawkins) was up top on his own. I think people can see we did give it a go, but it’s still frustrating.’
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