Individual Errors Costly to Ports

It was the manner of the start to games which is concerning for Ports boss Niall Currie, “It’s really poor from us again, it’s far too easy for them, we’re giving ourselves a big mountain to climb, that’s last week and this week again, we’re giving ourselves a lot to do.”The early setback fired up the visitors and they should have been at least two goals ahead by the interval. Ryan Mayse was the main culprit; he could easily have bagged a hat-trick. He just failed to connect to a superb chipped pass from Teelan, then fired wide when again well placed.The Ports thought they were back on level terms on twenty-eight minutes when McCartan set up Ukek to fire home from the angle of the box, but he was adjudged to have been offside in the narrowest of margins. He didn’t have to wait long thought to score from a carbon copy move. Rabby Minzamba disposed Forsythe in the centre of the park and as he bore down on goal he slipped the ball to Ukek to hammer home a superb equaliser.Niall Currie’s side were well on top and as they poured forward in attack after attack, and it was that man Mayse again with the chance to give his side the lead. A sublime pass from Ukek picked out Mayse on the edge of the box, and for a split second it looked like he was about to strike it first time, but he decided to create a better angle, and his shot ended up going narrowly wide. Ports gaffer Currie was pleased with how they responded to the early set back, “I thought from our reaction to the goal our character in the first half was super, we should have been coming in at half-time a couple up. We done well to get back into the game but we had two or three wonderful chances which we rued.”

Sadly, for Portadown that first half performance was not replicated in the second period and it was the home side that took the lead again in the fifty -sixth minute when Jordan Forsythe headed home unchallenged from a corner kick. The third goal for Crusaders came from a speculative long ball forward from Forsythe deep in his own half. Lewis MacKinnon failed to deal with the threat of Stewart Nixon, leaving him with the simplest of tasks to cut the ball back across the face of goal where Jewitt-White forced it across the line.It was only after going two behind that the Ports created any danger in the opposition half, Manzimba and McCartan both had excellent opportunities to reduce the arrears but squandered the chances. A minute into added time defender Lee Chapman made it 2-3 when he bundled the ball into the net at the back post, but it was too little too late. Niall Currie was again left to rue goals gifted to the opposition, “The big disappointment for me is the goals we gave away in the second half. They are individual errors, and we keep saying you have to suck them up, but that’s football. They were really poor goals; they didn’t have to work hard enough for their goals.”