Porthmadog gained a thoroughly deserved but hard fought victory against a tenacious Hotspur side who have recently been badly hit by a raft of departures to neighbouring Trearddur Bay, writes Treflyn Jones.

The Traeth travellers started brightly enough and kept possession very well.

With only five minutes gone, recent signing Gerwyn Williams came close to opening the scoring when he latched on to a well-weighted through ball into the box but his worthy effort was well saved by the onrushing custodian Adam Martin who was by far the busier of the two goalkeepers on the night.

Seven minutes later, the same attacker produced a good long range shot which unfortunately went straight at the keeper.

It wasn’t all Port, however. The dangerous and pacy Dylan Jones-Summers achieved Hotspur’s first effort on target after 15 minutes, when, after a mazy run, he unleashed a powerful drive which Morgan Jones parried away for a corner.

During the ensuing 10 minutes or so, Holyhead gradually found their feet and made further forays into the Port half without seriously threatening Jones’ goal.

During the closing 20 minutes of the half, it was nearly all Port in terms of possession and they were setting up goalscoring chances galore.

The Harbourmen made a goal-line clearance but the hosts broke quickly and forced Jones to make an excellent save low down.

Then, some eight minutes from the interval, Adam Martin was forced into a save with his legs on the goal-line.

Caio Hughes also had a goal-bound shot deflected for a corner and a fine 20-yard effort by Cai Jones was parried away.

They also hit the bar in a frantic period of non-stop attacks.

The ball just would not go in and Port supporters were absolutely tearing their hair out wondering when on earth they were going to score. But 0-0 it remained at the break.

After a somewhat quiet and cagy start to the second period, Port at long last made the breakthrough on the hour mark.

It all started with a blistering run down the left flank by Caio Hughes whose deep cross from the by line evaded everybody in the six yard area and fell to the left boot of Gerwyn Williams to net his first for Port since joining from Dolgellau.

Port were now understandably growing in confidence and 10 minutes later, Marcus Banks did very well to score Port’s second with a sliding toe-poke into the corner of the net.

A cushion? Not quite, it seems. With some 14 minutes of normal time remaining, Port supporters were suffering palpitations as an awkward low cross bounced immediately and awkwardly in front of Jones whose fumble fell into the path of substitute Corey Williams who tapped home to the delight of the home supporters.

Port continued to set up chances and had two worthy shouts for a penalty as both Cian Pritchard and Gareth Jones-Evans appeared to be brought down in the box.

On 82 minutes, there was a real heart-in-mouth moment as a great long distance effort from a Hotspur attacker had to be parried onto the bar by Morgan Jones. But Port prevailed and are now on 22 points with, possibly, three more victories required to achieve survival in the Cymru North.

Next Saturday, they welcome Rhuthun to Y Traeth in another league match with a 2.30pm kick-off.