Porthleven boss Dennis Annear is pleased with the way his young side are progressing after a positive start to the season.

Despite being tipped to struggle this year, so far Port have more then held their own, with the Fishermen managing a useful six points from their opening four games, including victory against Perranporth.

“I’m really chuffed with the way the boys are playing at the moment,” said Annear.

“Not only with the results, but with the way they’re trying to play football. We’re a small side, we don’t have a big six footer up front who can hold the ball up, so we need to move the it about quickly, and when we do that, I think we’ve looked really good.”

Much has been made of Porthleven being a young side, but a cursory glance at the teamsheet from last weekend’s defeat against Callington is enough to confirm just how young.

“Our average age is 18.2 years without me in goal,” said Annear. “With me in goal it’s 20.2. After me the next oldest player is Dan Tarrant who’s 24, so it really is like a youth team playing in a men’s league, but I can’t fault any of them.”

One of Porthleven’s major problems last season was a lack of goals, but so far Annear’s side have not struggled to find the back of the net.

“We don’t have a Mark Goldsworthy or a Liam Eddy, so what we’re trying to do is set ourselves up so the midfielders can score, and it’s worked. Jordan [Annear] has scored a few, Matt Best has got a couple, and Thomas Hawkins scored at the weekend. If you can score goals from other places and not just your strikers, you’re doing OK, and luckily so far we’ve managed to do that.”

But with a sequence of tough fixtures coming up and some players leaving for university, Annear knows Port may be entering a crucial part of the season.

“I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground and trying to fill any gaps,” he said, “but as things are I’m pleased with how we’ve started.”