PORTHLEVEN co-manager Jamie Thomson spoke of his relief at his side’s much-needed victory at home to Callington Town on Saturday.

Dan Richardson and Joe Wright scored as Port came back from a goal down to win 2-1 at Gala Parc, ending a run of three and a half months without a win and five months without a home victory.

“I almost feel like I’m betraying myself when I say it because I was all about performances this season and about building for next but winning is winning and it’s a habit we want to get back into,” he said.

He added: “I’m a coach by nature and I want to see performances and I want to see us play a certain way and play good football, but at the same time I do now appreciate from a management perspective how if you’re not winning you’re not doing the right thing, so we have to get results.

“Today wasn’t the best performance but we got the result. In previous weeks I’ve been saying the opposite but it’s somewhat nice to be on this side of it for a change.”

The winning goal came in controversial circumstances in the 79th minute when referee Mike Glanville awarded the hosts a penalty when he deemed Callington’s John Wyatt to have handled Matt Fox’s cross.

Despite vociferous appeals from the visitors, Glanville, after consulting his linesman, awarded the spot kick, which Wright rifled home to give Port the lead.

“I’ll be honest, from my view in the dugout I thought initially the ball has hit his shoulder/chest, but I couldn’t be sure if it then hits his arm as he falls,” Thomson said.

“It’s one that if we had given against us we’d have appealed against and been upset, and rightly so they were too, but it all evens itself out over the season and I could probably recount you five or six when were on the other side of it earlier in the season.”

The goal was Wright’s second in as many games since joining the club from Helston Athletic reserves, and Thomson hailed his new forward’s presence up front.

“It’s great for his confidence, obviously we’d love for him to get a hat-trick in open play and terrorise defenders, but strikers are about goals. We’ve missed an out-and-out striker this season; Charlie’s [Young] been superb for us and he knows where the back of the net is, but he’s an attacking midfielder by nature and some of the natural things that come to Wrighty we’ve been missing.

“When Charlie comes back in I think it suits him as well because Charlie can then play in his natural position and anyone that knows Charlie Young will tell you that he is one of the best attacking midfielders you’ll find at this level.”

Port played 60 minutes of the game with an extra man after Ryan Lucassi had been sent off for committing the last-man foul on Wright that led to Richardson’s equaliser.

But he home side struggled to break down their dogged opponents, who created plenty of problems on the counter through the impressive Andre Rodukov and Robinson.

“We simulated it in our pre-season games and in training about how to be hard to break down when you’re down to ten, especially with sin bins this season, it’s something that every team needs to know what to do,” Thomson said.

“We are all aware that just because they’ve got ten men it isn’t a license to just go and win the game comfortably, in fact it’s sometimes harder playing against ten because it sets their game plan up to play on the counter which they did pretty well.

“We had to be more patient, work them around the pitch a bit more, try and tire them out and see if we could break them down via our possession, which is not something we’ve gone away from but something we’ve not relied on as much as we did earlier in the season.”