FOOTBALL: Baby blues for Taylor

Taylor’s side were hoping to collect their first points of the season, but despite a gutsy performance, the home side walked away 3-1 winners.

“We have been playing well, we’re just giving away sloppy goals, “ told Gary.

“To be fair the referee did us no favours, Alan Ewart was brought down in the box, but we got nothing for it.

“That happened early in the game and to be honest I think our luck didn’t change after that.”

New signing Ricky Dunlop could have put the Ports ahead early in the tie, his header went just wide of the post.

The home side opened the scoring after just ten minutes, a back pass was intercepted by the experienced Shay Campbell and he made no mistake to thump the ball past Madison.

Portstewart should have been awarded a penatly ten minutes later when Alan Ewart was up-ended in the box.

Luck certainly wasn’t on Portstewart’s side and Campbell netted his second minutes later.

Despite the scoreline, Portstewart continued to battle and their efforts paid off just before the break when Craig Ramsey hit home from an Owen Moody corner.

A revitalised Portstewart returned to the pitch after the break, efforts from Ricky Dunlop and Ian Todd were saved by the Annagh keeper.

Portstewart continued to play free flowing football, but despite their efforts Annagh grabbed a third in the final stages of the game to secure the points.

The Portstewart boss singled out Alan Ewart, Owen Moody and Dean Murray for praise: “We have a very young team and Annagh are a very strong physical team with plenty of experienced players.

“Alan Ewart was the best player on the park, he took some knocks, but he just got up and got on with it.

“Owen Moody put in a number of good crosses and Dean Murray came on and proved that he’s very capable at this level,” admitted Gary.

Portstewart travel to Tobermore tonight (Tuesday) in the NW Cup, while on Saturday they have a home game against Chimney Corner, the game has a 3pm kick off.