DEXTER Blackstock was thrilled to repay Steve Wigley's considerable faith in him.

With James Beattie, Kevin Phillips, Peter Crouch and Brett Ormerod all available, Wigley opted for 18-year-old Blackstock alongside Beattie for what was the biggest match of the Saints head coach's career.

And Blackstock rose to the occasion magnificently, scoring a crucial equaliser soon after Andreas Jakobsson's own goal and causing the Portsmouth defence plenty of problems.

It was the England under-19 international's fifth goal in only his seventh first-team appearance - the previous four had all been in the Carling Cup agains lower division opposition - to make him the club's top-scorer this season.

He said: "The gaffer has shown a lot of faith in me so I would like to think that I have repaid that by scoring.

"I am happy that we won but more so for the gaffer than anything else.

"He has come in for a lot of stick this week but I don't think much of it has been his fault. It has been down to us, so it was down to us to change it - hopefully this is a step towards this."

Blackstock relished the atmosphere of his first south-coast derby.

He said: "It is great to score against anyone but when I heard the fans when it went in you realise what it means to them. There is so much passion in a game like this that to score was fantastic and it was also nice to get off the mark in the Premiership as well.

"When we got the equaliser, though, I always thought that we could go on and win it and the important thing now is that we push on from where we are.

"This team is capable of doing a lot better than it has been recently so we have got to use this.

"We are capable of mixing it in the top half of the Premiership so that is what we have got to aim for.

"We have been underachieving but hopefully this can kickstart our season."

Wigley, who has helped develop Blackstock in his former roles of director of youth and reserve team manager, said: "He has been a pleasure to work since he has been at the club.

"Of all the young strikers, he is the one who wants to be between the posts and he will score goals."