The delighted head coach of Watford Women saluted “the best” performance of the season after his side boosted their promotion push with an impressive 2-0 victory over leaders Portsmouth at Grosvenor Vale last night.

Two set piece headers in the opening 15 minutes of the second half from Anne Meiwald and Kalani Peart, both from Gemma Davison deliveries, moved the Golden Girls to within five points of Pompey at the summit of the FA Women’s National League Southern Premier Division - and with three games in hand.

A jubilant Damon Lathrope said: “We got everything we deserved tonight. From my perspective, probably from after the first five minutes, we absolutely controlled the game and probably could have won by more in the end but I thought the girls, to a player, were absolutely superb tonight.”

Asked about the goals in the club interview, Lathrope said: “We worked on them yesterday, we worked on the details of the set pieces, so it's really pleasing to see two come off.

“We know that Portsmouth are a team that are really good themselves from set pieces, defending and attacking, so that’s really nice for us to see and good to see the girls taking on the information.

“But overall it was a superb performance, the best of the season in my opinion, and we need to take loads of confidence from that and momentum into the next few fixtures.”

The victory came after Faye Brough’s late winner had secured a 2-1 home win against MK Dons on Sunday, but the players showed no signs of tiredness despite playing a second game inside four days.

“We train at a really good intensity,” said the head coach. “I’ve said it all season, they train the way they play and it doesn’t surprise that they’re able to put performances like that in.

“I couldn’t tell you that they played a game three days ago, the work rate was superb from minute one to 95. We looked like we could have gone for another 30 in my opinion, so the work they put in it shows and we get the product on game day.”

Attention now turns to Sunday’s trip to an Ipswich Town side who are three points behind the Hornets in fourth place in the table – but Lathrope only has one target in mind.

He said: “We wanted nine points out of these three games and we knew it was a big ask because we’re playing three very good teams. We’ve got six out of six so far and we’re going for another three at the weekend.

“This tees us up perfectly for the game. We know they’re a good football team but we’re not going there for anything less than three points.”