Portsmouth head coach John Mousinho hailed Rob Atkinson for going above and beyond to secure a 2-2 draw with relegation rivals Derby at Fratton Park.
The centre-back scored a bizarre ‘hat-trick’ – made up of an own goal and two ‘proper’ goals – as Pompey twice came from behind to earn a share of the spoils.
The Bristol City loanee has spent two years on the sidelines with an ACL injury and had missed Pompey’s last seven fixtures with a calf problem.
Mousinho said: “Rob is a player who has had two years of serious injuries at Bristol City. We have managed him back into the fold since he arrived in January.
“There aren’t too many players with five games left of their loan who would have risked what Rob risked today.
“He’s going to go back to Bristol City after his loan but he played like he had a four-year contract with Portsmouth.
“I am pleased we have characters like him in our dressing room. He was pencilled in to play 60 minutes and he went beyond that and left everything out there.”
Pompey could have taken control of a frenetic match in the fifth minute but Colby Bishop’s penalty was saved after Matt Ritchie had been taken down in the box.
Marcus Harness struck the crossbar in the first half for the Rams before three goals in five minutes turned the match bonkers.
Jerry Yates scored the first of them with a powerful header from a Craig Forsyth cross before Atkinson diverted a corner home seconds later.
Yates missed an open goal before a low cross from Kayden Jackson was turned into his own goal by Atkinson.
But the ex-Oxford man salvaged a point by heading in a long ball by Nicolas Schmid in added time to leave Pompey four points above the bottom three.
“The most important thing was not to lose,” added Mousinho.
“We would like to have more of a gap to the drop zone but for 90 per cent of the season, if you have given me this situation with four games to go, I would have taken it.
“It could have been worse and we could have been looking at a different picture so it was important for us to come back and draw the game.
“Psychologically, it was important we came back to get a result.”
Derby picked up just their 12th away point of the season, with just one defeat in their last seven buoying their hopes of survival.
Boss John Eustace said: “I think it is an excellent all-round performance. I don’t think many people would have expected us to get a result here.
“I think the effort and desire and commitment was there for all to see but when you go into the last five or six minutes 2-1 up I expected us to see it out.
“We were under a lot of pressure and they put a lot of good balls into the box but overall we defended it well, just not well enough to get the three points.
“I thought it was a really good Championship game where both teams wanted to win the game and went toe-to-toe. To come away with a point is pleasing but it is disappointing not to get all three.
“We are just taking each game as it comes now.”
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