It started so well, it went so badly wrong, it finished so encouragingly.

That sums up Fratton Park's first play-off match in nearly a quarter of a century, although it doesn't do justice to the pure drama to which we were treated.

After all the pre-match memories of the Blues' last venture into the play-offs and agonising defeat to Leicester in 1993, it was maybe inevitable this home leg would see Pompey go ahead, fall behind then fight back for a 2-2 draw - exactly as they did against Brian Little's team in the home leg 23 Mays ago. We must just hope the away leg doesn't end with the same scoreline, 1-0 in favour of the home side, as we also saw back then.

For me, there is plenty of hope for Pompey as they look towards Sunday's visit to Home Park. At 2-2 at 'half-time', it is clearly all to play for - but it is Pompey who can go into leg two having had by far the best of leg one.

The second half saw Paul Cook's men in almost total control of a fast-paced tie, just unable to go on from drawing level to get what would have been a big third goal. They are a better footballing team than Plymouth and just need to go into Sunday's game in the same way they went into this.

As I said in my intro, it started so well. The ground was rocking like it hadn't for a long, long time: Was pre-match and the first 10 minutes the noisiest it had been since AC Milan? And the team responded. Attacking from the start, they were 1-0 up with a shade under three minutes on the Milton End clock as Michael Doyle, who throughout this game completely justified the player of the season award that went his way on Saturday, won the ball and fed Marc McNulty, who finished with power from 20 yards.

Too good to be true? Sort of. Plymouth were level five minutes later and there was a question mark against Ryan Allsop for not claiming a ball headed in from the left side of the box and met by Jamille Matt.

You have to feel a little sorry for Allsop, thrown straight into Pompey's biggest game in years just hours after being signed. He is undoubtedly better than he showed either when Matt's first went on or when the same player beat him again 10 minutes later with a close-range overhead kick. Allsop has no time to settle in but if he is required again on Sunday, you have to hope he has got his nerves out of the way and will grow in confidence playing behind his new pals.

In an ideal world, we'd perhaps have recruited a goalie with more than 90 senior games behind him - but in an ideal world, you do not lose three good stoppers to injury all at the same time. It's a freakish treble that any club would find difficult to deal with.

Matt should not have been on the field for his second, having made clear head-to-head contact with Doyle after the Pompey skipper had dragged him away leg first from a tangle on the ground with Danny Hollands. The referee was close by - if he didn't see it, it is surprising; if he did, it is surprising he didn't act. The only man ordered away from action was boss Cook for his furious reaction to the incident and lack of punishment for Matt.

Given the way certain Spurs players have been hastily punished for incidents picked up on TV cameras in recent weeks, if Matt is able to play in the second leg, you would have to conclude it is one rule for the top teams, another for everybody else. We await FA action with interest.

Plymouth's come-from-behind trick, seen here for the second time inside a month at Fratton, left the atmopshere a little muted for a while in contrast to the early raucousness but gradually the Blues found their feet, tightened up at the back and resumed the job of carrying the fight to the Pilgrims.

Doyle and Hollands used the ball intelligently, as did the central-defensive pair of Christian Burgess and Adam Barton - Barton, in my view, being unlucky to be pipped to the MoM title by his partner at the back. Kyle Bennett, who had had a battle to be fit for this game, was always looking for the ball but looked short of match sharpness and was replaced by Kal Naismith with almost half an hour left, and - though I am as big a fan of Bennett as anyone - I wonder if Naismith with his recent knack of finding the net might get a starting place at Home Park?

Gary Roberts has emerged over the long season into Pompey's chief talisman - he is at the centre of much of their best play and also seems to be the only one to have a regular song in his honour. He has given it absolutely everything in recent weeks so it was fitting that he stepped up to dispatch the second-half penalty - given for a foul only just inside the box on McNulty - that put Pompey on level terms.

After that there was only one team that wanted to nick a win and only one who looked like they might get it, and it wasn't the men in mauve.

Pompey had goodness-knows-what-percentage of the possession of the second 45 minutes but if there is a criticism of their display after their second goal, it's that they didn't work keeper Luke McCormick enough. He did make one top-class save to push away a goalbound McNulty shot but other than that he only had to claim crosses put too close to him or watch as his defence took advantage of Pompey players over-egging it.

But what Pompey showed in that second half was that they are good enough to outplay this Plymouth team in pure footballing ability. They need to remember that when they run out at Home Park and they need to forget that they are the away team. If they approach the second leg in the same way they approached the first, they can win. If Plymouth turn it into a battle of aerial balls and elbows, maybe they'll be the ones to go to Wembley on May 30.

It will be tight, it may go to extra-time or even penalties. But Pompey can do it. And they know it.

Pompey: Allsop; Davies, Burgess, Barton, Stevens; Hollands, Doyle (c); Evans, Roberts, Bennett (Naismith 62); McNulty (McGurk 81). Subs not used: Whatmough, Clarke, Close, Tollitt, Wilkinson

Referee: Oliver Langford

Attendance: 17,622 (1,902 away fans)

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