Portsmouth, Leicester City, and ex-Rotherham striker details plans for the future after scoring his first English league goal against Lincoln

Prior to his loan arrival in PO4, the Leicester striker had suffered a fruitless spell in the Championship with Rotherham and failed to notch in his two Premier League appearances with the Foxes.

But the 22 -year-old has now laid rest to his worries after bagging Pompey’s second goal in the 3-0 rout over the Imps tonight.

Hirst expertly lost his marker to find space in the six-yard-box before sweeping home Ronan Curtis’ pinpoint cross into the bottom corner of the next - then proceeded to receive the adulation from the Fratton faithful behind the goal.

And tonight’s performance caps off an impressive two weeks for the striker after scoring his first for the club against Crystal Palace under-21s before providing the assist for Marcus Harness’ winner against Wycombe.

Now, he says, he’s ready for more.

Speaking to The News he said: ‘(It’s) my first league goal in England and it’s a big weight off my shoulders. It’s just the start hopefully and that’s the sort of benchmark I set myself, just to keep getting better and better every week. And if I can keep doing that then I’m sure the goals will keep flowing.

‘I think the Crystal Palace match was a good game for me to go out there and get 90 minutes under myself and put in a good performance in and it sort of teed me up a little bit to sort of go and hopefully get a run of games in the side which I think we’re seeing the fruits of that now.

‘To come here today and get the goal on the back of last weekend, it’s been a great couple of weeks for me.

‘Now it’s not about resting on my laurels as all I can do now is keep going into training hard and doing the extra work that I’ve been doing all season and then staying in the team. Hopefully by doing that, I will score more goals.’

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