MK Dons Women were beaten 4-1 by a ruthless Portsmouth at Westleigh Park.

Charlie Bill’s side, who were victorious in their opening game of the FAWNL Southern Premier Division season, conceded three goals in the space of 14 first-half minutes and were never able to recover.

MK Dons made a positive start but were unable to truly test the Portsmouth goalkeeper. They were then made to pay for their missed opportunities, when Emma Jones put the home side ahead on 22 minutes.

With their tails up, Pompey showed their cutting edge and Tierney Scott and Sophie Quirk both added to the advantage to give the home side a 3-0 lead going into the break.

A strong start to the second half saw the Dons rewarded when Tally Miles found the net two minutes in, however Portsmouth were able to restore their three-goal advantage through Jones just before the hour.

The Dons, to their credit, kept battling and saw Nicola Puddick and Nicole Pepper both denied brilliantly by the Pompey goalkeeper.

They weren’t though, able to stage a comeback and will now turn their attention to Wednesday’s home opener with Cheltenham Town and the opportunity it provides to returning to winning ways.

Speaking after the game, Bill said: “We are disappointed but that’s the highs and lows of football. We’ve seen the highs last week of winning as we did last Sunday and then we come back down to earth with a low.

“It was a 14-minute spell of madness which cost us. We also didn't do enough things right defensively – we let runners past us and we dropped a little bit of intensity.

“The game didn’t start like that. In the first 20,25 minutes, we looked really excited and we got in a couple of times but against a fantastic Portsmouth side, what you can’t do is not take chances and then give them chances. They were ruthless with their three strikes and we can’t do a lot from there in terms of saving the game.

“We’ve spoken about it in the changing rooms after. We are still a young group and lot of them may have not experienced things like that before. It’s about learning how, when they go a goal down, how do we then manage that.

“It’s a quick turnaround to Wednesday so we’ll come back in on Tuesday and reflect. They will be so eager to come back in and put the wrongs right.”