Plymouth 2 Pompey 2 - Gaffer for a day

Conor Chaplin tormented the Plymouth defence. Picture: Joe Pepler

So close to toppling the league leaders then.

I thought we were good and marginally deserved a win.

When I have seen Pompey before this season the build-up has been slow, side-to-side and backwards.

But on Saturday it was a tactical ball over the top, down the flanks for Chaplin.

It was very effective against their two giant central defenders.

How they made Sonny Bradley their sponsors’ man of the match I will never know.

We were sat with Argyle fans and the people with us thought Pompey were the better side.

They were relieved to get a point.

Mind you, before the game we would also have taken a point gratefully.

A few penalty shouts too.

The one on Conor by Gary Miller in the first half was a cast-iron spot-kick, we were right in line with it.

Why did he need to fall over if he hadn’t been caught, he was straight through on goal at the time.

The Argyle supporters with us thought it was a penalty, as did many on their message boards afterwards.

Their manager and fans were claiming our players were falling over and whinging, while Paul Cook was jumping up and down and pressuring officials – but that was a spot-kick.

I see Kyle Bennett was your man of the match.

He looked dangerous every time he got the ball and took his goal wonderfully well.

All the fans around me were raving about him and then very relieved when he was taken off.

Bennett had energy and was a breath of fresh air, a different player to last season.

He was on fire and it was a very close run between him and Conor Chaplin for man of the match.

And what do you make of the ‘Dockyard Derby’ tag?

It is a load of rubbish, we have never considered it to be anything like that.

This handle has been used by the media and Argyle fans give it more significance than we do.

I have been a Pompey fan for more than 50 years and it doesn’t exist as far as I am concerned.

A lot of their fans are also a bit bemused by it.

My ratings

David Forde 7

Gareth Evans 5

Christian Burgess 6

Tom Davies 7

Enda Stevens 6

Michael Doyle 7

Amine Linganzi 6

Carl Baker 7

Gary Roberts 7

Kyle Bennett 9

Conor Chaplin 8