Danny Cowley's pride at Portsmouth 'spirit and fight' after Sheffield Wednesday point following remarkable Hillsborough second half

And the Blues’ head coach revealed his disappointment at not claiming all three points in a pulsating 3-3 draw against their Sheffield Wednesday hosts.

People trailed at half-time to Marvin Johnson’s eighth-minute goal in this afternoon’s League One opener.

However, Connor Ogilvie, Michael Jacobs and debutant Colby Bishop turned the match on its head to eventually take a 3-2 lead with nine minutes remaining.

The Owls, among this season’s promotion favourites, were indebted to Fisayo Dele-Bashiru’s second goal of the game to scramble home a point.

Regardless, Cowley heaped praise on his team’s remarkable character amid a testing building to the fixture.

He told The News: ‘It’s good to be back, a great game of football, it had everything, a roller coaster of events and, as a consequence, emotions.

‘We had to show all of our mettle and substance to stay in the game and we did that well in the first half, we showed a hell of a lot of character.

‘I said to them after the game, don’t underestimate what we have achieved today.

‘When you actually consider all of the factors, such as Michael Morrison hadn’t trained or played in pre-season before Tuesday.

‘We found out off the back of the Coventry game that we had lost Clark (Robertson), so Michael came in for 45 minutes on Tuesday against Barnet.

‘Sean Raggett also played 45 minutes against Barnet after his back injury in Spain and he wasn’t happy. It took for us to put an injection in Wednesday for him to be able to get through.

‘How he got through today I will never know, that boy is as tough as they come.

‘We talk a lot about technique and tactics, but it’s not always about that, sometimes it’s about character.

‘If you are the team that never gives up then you will be pretty hard to beat.

‘We’re disappointed after conceding late, but we are certainly proud of the efforts, proud of the spirit and the fight that the group showed.’

Dele-Bashiru’s 81st-minute strike arrived from a corner with Connor Ogilvie off the pitch.

The defender had hurt his head while clearing a Wednesday attack moments earlier and temporarily left for medical attention.

It ultimately proved awful timing for Pompey.

Cowley added: ‘I’m disappointed we didn’t win.

‘We went into the lead – and then conceded the third goal with nine minutes to go. I feel sorry for the players.

‘We are down to 10 men. From the set-piece we had only 10 men on the pitch, we had a player less.

‘They put an extra one into the box and we conceded, so it’s really frustrating, I feel for the players.’

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