Watford Res 1 Portsmouth Res 4

A hat-trick by Portsmouth's Berlin Ndebe-Nlome undermined Watford on a freezing evening at Boreham WoodFC.

Following an excellent victory over Arsenal a week ago, the hosts began in buoyant mood the team strengthened by starts for recent signing's Moses Ashikodi, Steve Kabba and Johan Cavilli.

However, the visitors for whom the ubiquitous Lomana LuaLua featured heavily simply had too much firepower after a circumspect beginning to run out comfortable victors in the end.

The opening exchanges belonged to the Golden Boys and they had plenty of possession during the first half.

Alex Campana was a threat down the left flank all evening and Kabba and Theo Robinson soon had opportunities to break the deadlock, the former miss hitting an effort, the latter having a shot well saved by Jamie Ashdown in the Pompey goal.

Ashdown then had to be alert to deny the ever improving Campana following a flowing move orchestrated by Ashikodi, but at the other end LuaLua and Ndebe-Nlome together with Arnold Mveumba were beginning to make their presence felt.

Ndebe-Nlome had already tested Scott Loach in the Watford goal with a stinging effort, before as half time approached he opened the scoring with a neat finish.

The interval merely confirmed the loss of feeling in one's hands, and two quick goals at the start of the second half effectively ended the contest.

Once again Ndebe-Nlome was Watford's nemesis, converting from close range, and then following a sublime piece of skill by LuaLua, heading home for a worthy treble.

Watford substitute, Aaron Beech was then unlucky to see an effort cleared off the line, but soon Joe Ostler took advantage of a Loach error to net from a yard, and although Robinson did grab a consolation with a cool finish, there was no escaping the side that had the extra quality on the night claimed the points.