Portsmouth 4 - 0 Notts County: Kyle Bennett double sinks Notts County to keep Portsmouth automatic hopes alive

Posted Saturday, March 26, 2016 by PA

Kyle Bennett scored twice to keep Portsmouth's faint automatic promotion hopes alive as they thrashed Notts County 4-0 in Sky Bet League Two.

Winger Bennett fired past goalkeeper Scott Loach either side of half-time for his fifth and sixth goals of the season, before defender Christian Burgess and Marc McNulty added gloss late on.

A minute before the interval Bennett was able to run unhindered into the box and place into the bottom corner.

Moments after the restart Adam McGurk should have doubled the advantage, but his free header from Ben Davies' whipped free-kick glanced wide.

It did not matter when Bennett grabbed his second in the 48th minute, the former Doncaster man cottoning onto Roberts' slide-rule pass and slotting past Loach.

It was 3-0 when Burgess got in front of his man to head in Enda Stevens' quickly-taken free-kick.

Substitute McNulty lobbed a header over Loach to complete the torment. Portsmouth remain five points adrift of the top three in sixth place, while Mark Cooper endured a tough first match in the Magpies dug-out.