Hawkins: Portsmouth grateful for point

The Shrews were second from bottom in League One and without a league victory to their name when they today arrived at Fratton Park.

Yet when substitute Greg Docherty netted with his first touch on 74 minutes, it appeared victory was theirs.

However, Brett Pitman preserved Pompey's unbeaten league record with an 87th minute leveller.

And Hawkins, who had been replaced by Pitman on 67 minutes, admitted the 1-1 outcome was well-received considering the circumstances.

He said: '˜Obviously it was good to get a point out what was a tough game.

'˜We knew Shrewsbury were down there and hadn't won yet, but they've got really good players. Going into the game we knew we had to stay strong, defend well '“ as we've been doing '“ and we could win.

'˜In the end we were 1-0 down and luckily Brett scored the penalty, so we'll take the draw.

'˜Shrewsbury made it tough for us, they had a lot of the ball in the first half and in the second half we were on top, the crowd were on top, but maybe it didn't go our way like last week.

'˜It was an ugly game, both teams battled, there were a lot of tackles, a lot of long balls, and it was a different feel to last week, when we felt like we could score with every attack.

'˜We had to be patient and, at 1-0 down, then had to fight back to get the draw.'