IT WAS just before the end last night that Alan Ball stood up in the directors' box and doffed his cap.

At first glance it looked as though it was in mock acknowledgement at the chanting Manchester City fans but on reflection it was probably in respect to Mark Kennedy.

Kennedy is not one of The Clan but a leader in his field, the president of precision crossing and the essential difference between the two sides.

Ball's return to Maine Road didn't produce too many surprises. He got verbal hammer - ranging form good natured to foul - and his Pompey side took some leather as well. But for a fair chunk of the game, Ball looked as though he would be able to thumb a nose at the Blue Mooners.

Pompey twice grabbed the lead but in the end were unable to hold on as City took inspiration from Kennedy.

Kennedy is like a tropical storm. You know he's coming, you know what he's going to do and you know the devastating effect he's going to have. But you still can't do anything about it.

He is all left peg but no matter how much defenders try to stand him on his right foot, he needs just the merest shift to create the half yard required to whip in crosses with pace and curl.

City knew how to use the wide acres of Maine Road especially in the second half when Terry Cooke came on to patrol the right flank and stretch the Pompey back four.

Kennedy got City back in the game within a minute of the restart, cutting inside for once. Andy Petterson was unable to hold his shot and Jeff Whitley reacted first to make it 2-2.

Kennedy's magic wand of a left peg then conjured up two goals in three minutes for former Saints trainee Gareth Taylor.

Twice Kennedy went to the well, delivering piercing crosses and on each occasion Taylor crashed in headers from inside the six-yard box. While Ball coshed his central defenders, it is not an unknown phenomena for a keeper to stake out his territory around his goal.

Jamie Pollock wrapped it up with an injury-time mirror image of the goal that gave Pompey a seventh-minute lead. A corner was cleared, a defence caught short and Pollock beat Petterson from 12 yards. Earlier Lee Bradbury had latched on to Mike Panopoulos's pass to nick the ball past Nicky Weaver's kamikaze rush to put Pompey 1-0 up. Pompey's second lead goal came through a catalogue of errors from a distinctly unimpressive City defence, Thomas Thogersen scoring.

For all City's pressure and territorial supremacy, Pompey always looked capable and before Pollock's clincher an outstreched Weaver leg denied Fitzroy Simp-son and Tommy Berntsen headed back a ball Guy Whittingham just failed to make real contact with.

It was the sort of aerial power, though, that Ball wanted to see in his own penalty area.

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