Curtis savours opening his Pompey goal account at Blackpool

The Irishman fired in a double to lead the Blues to a 2-1 victory over Blackpool on Saturday.

Curtis menaced the Tangerines' defence throughout the Bloomfield Road fixture and delivered a man-of-the-match performance in his second competitive outing for Kenny Jackett's side.

The summer signing from Derry City scored his maiden goal for the Blues on nine minutes when he latched onto Oli Hawkins' header and finished from close range.

The pair combined again for Curtis to emphatically double Pompey's lead in the 59th minute.

And the Republic of Ireland under-21 international toasted a superb afternoon for himself and his team.

Curtis said: 'I was absolutely buzzing with my first goal.

'Hopefully it is the first of many for Pompey and then I got the second one as well. I was very happy on Saturday.

'˜For the first goal, I could have gone down and it would have been a penalty all day long.

'˜However, I stayed up and then that gave me confidence for even more then. I was off balance but if they go in, they go in and they all count the same

'˜Oli and I have a good relationship. He's tall so he gets up and wins a lot of flick-ons so I judged it, got in behind and got two goals.

'˜You get a bit of confidence after your first goal and then it grows upon you.

'˜I thought we could have scored a few more goals. I had one that was blocked and one off the posts, Hawks had a couple and Gareth had a couple. We could have scored four or five goals. We deserved to win the game.'

Pompey maintained their 100-per-cent start to the season at Blackpool.

However, Mark Cullen's late strike made for a nervy ending, while the Tangerines striker had a goal denied at the death after being flagged offside.

Curtis saluted the steel the Blues displayed to hang on for three points.

'It was the all-round performance from all of the boys,' he added.

'˜We dug deep and then I got the goal, gave me confidence and went on to score the second - we deserved to win.

'˜Just one long ball beat us at the end. Once they got their goal, they got their tails up and were looking for more.

'˜There was a bit of relief when the offside flag went up. But we had a good line, set up well and we couldn't fault the boys at the back. They did get back into the game but we dug deep to get the win.'