Andy Munro gets all alliterative at St Andrews.

It was billed as a ‘must win’ game – how many times has that been said? – and we probably, and fortunately, caught Middlesbrough at the right time.

Mind you, league positions rarely lie and they are undoubtedly a decent side. Certainly in the first fifteen minutes, we came out of the blocks like a three legged tortoise whilst Boro’ could and should have had a couple of goals, one thwarted chance being down to an acrobatic save by Boaz Myhill. We looked unusually suspect at the back and in midfield N’Daw (again) looked off the pace while Fahey wasted possession far too often. Strangely enough, it was up front that we kept some form with Ziggy putting in a decent shift along with Marlon.

However, with our first incisive move, the opening goal came from an arrowed cross by Burke to Ziggy who made no mistake with a bullet header from close in. It seems more than a coincidence that when Burke is on form, so are Blues. After our goal, the game ebbed and flowed but the opener gave us the confidence and the majority of possession.

The second half saw a continued upward graph of improvement and in some ways it was no surprise that Marlon King made it two. Again it was noticeable that this ascendancy dovetailed with a vastly improved showing in the middle of midfield with Fahey and N’Daw starting to boss things. Probably the only slightly disappointing aspect was Andros Townsend who, to me, over-elaborated to a stage when he lost possession having done the hard bit but failed to release the ball. It was, however, particularly pleasing to see Fahey not only earn man of the match but cap a fine performance with an excellent goal, following a shimmy that Ronaldo would have been pleased to execute.

Pablo Ibanez came on for Ramage and Chris H must have learnt from the previous game because he kept Curtis in the middle and used Pablo as the emergency full back as we saw the match comfortably out apart from a superb Myhill stop bang on the line. Husekleppe came on and looked lively as did Wade Elliott who probably deserved his run out after some fairly impressive recent performances. Mind you, I think the crowd were hoping Nathan Redmond would put in an appearance but it wasn’t to be.

The win sets us up nicely for Pompey so let’s hope that our recent blip is just that.