TWO goals in the first-half saw Downton lose their league opener to visiting US Portsmouth.

Extremely hot conditions for both sides may have slightly slowed the game down but it was Downton that moved the ball around a lot quicker for the opening 10 minutes.

Some clever link up play and with Shaun Prentice saw him put through one on one with only the goalkeeper to beat but saw his chip neatly saved.

Downton got the ball moving around nicely with everyone enjoying plenty of touches on the ball.

A rare Portsmouth attack within the first 20 minutes saw Liam Dance beaten in the air by custodian Tom Jeffers to take the visitors 1-0 up.

This almost took the wind out the Robins sales with there flowing passing being broken down to easily and let the visitors in again with a gift of a goal to take them 2-0 up at the break.

The second half saw Downton pile the pressure into the visitors and with the introduction of Charlie Cooper things started looking promising.

Some great play by Matt Cox and man of the match skipper Craig Tyson opened the defence up on several occasions but the Portsmouth goalkeeper was in great form.

With only 10 minutes to go the lively Cooper latched onto a great thru ball and weaved his way thru the defence only to be taken down by their defence and to everyone’s amazement the referee waived play on.

Downton kept up the pressure and forced a corner which Ben Smith met with power and forced the goalkeeper over the line with the ball, but again the referee waived play on.

Downton could do nothing more but settle for a defeat on the opening day of the season.

Manager Ben Smith said: "I really wanted to hit the ground running today but we came up against a side that we couldn’t break down with whatever we threw at them.

"The lads knew they would be in for a tough game in tough conditions. We played some excellent stuff at times with everyone passing and wanting to be on the ball but just didn’t get ourselves in the right areas.

He added: "With several refereeing decisions in our favour the game could have been a different story, but I’m very pleased the way we conducted ourselves in the second half. Everyone put everything they had into it and Portsmouth done very well to cope with our pressure so I will take the positives out and put them into next week’s visit to Totton and Eling."