‘It’s not an ideal situation – but we’ll deal with it because we’re Pompey!’

Pompey's Charmaine True, right, in action against Southampton in the Women's National League Cup quarter-final at Privett Park. Picture by Jordan Hampton.

Saints belied the fact they play a division below Pompey in the women’s pyramid to claim a deserved 2-0 quarter final win at Gosport Borough’s Privett Park last night.

It was the first time Saints had beaten Pompey since the Premier League club formed a women’s outfit three years ago.

It was also their third higher division cup scalp of the season, having previously beaten Pompey’s Southern Premier League rivals Yeovil and Cardiff.

‘We were slow out of the blocks,’ said Sadler, whose team had gone exactly a month without a competitive game.

‘We lacked a cutting edge. We conceded early, which we didn’t want to do, and the second goal on the stroke of half-time was a bit of a killer.

‘It’s a different game if we had gone in only 1-0 down.

‘We were better in the second half, but we didn’t really test their keeper. They were well organised and deserved to win.’

Sadler admits this has been ‘a unique’ season with so many postponements - 14 in all, most of which have come at their PMC Stadium home at Baffins Milton Rovers.

As a result, last night’s tie was switched to Gosport’s home ground - where Portsmouth Women used to stage matches - and Sadler said more games could be held there in the coming weeks.

Pompey still have eight of their 11 home league games to play, having not played one since September 22.

The team are back in action tonight against Bedhampton in the semi-finals of the Portsmouth FA Women’s Senior Cup at Furze Lane (7.05pm).

Talk about games being like buses ...

Portsmouth then return to league action at Hounslow this Sunday - their first league match since November!

‘We’ll be looking to play a few more games at Gosport if we can,’ said Sadler. ‘We can’t afford any more of the frustrations we’ve had so far.

‘We’ve only played seven of our 22 league games, and we might have to play at Watford and at Oxford in midweek.

‘It’s not ideal, but we’ll deal with it because we’re Pompey!’

New signing Nicole Filipe, a Portuguese under-19 international, could make her debut against Hampshire Women's League minnows Bedhampton tonight.