Lift-off for Whites

The Whites continued their dramatic late revival with a superb demolition of Newry City at New Grosvenor on Tuesday night.

With Portadown beating Institute it allowed Distillery to leapfrog them by a point. With one round of games left before the split, if the Whites beat Ballymena next Tuesday then they will have Institute at home instead of away in the first of the testing run-in fixtures.

"It's a great feeling for everyone to get off the bottom and looking at the league table is reward for all the hard work, but we are far from finished," said boss Tommy Wright.

"We have hauled back a massive 12 points to be here and the last thing we want to do now is slip back again.

"There is still a long way to go. We have six games left and there are a lot of points up for grabs. The pleasing thing is we are in there fighting. A few weeks ago no-one gave us a chance but the players dug in and they deserve all the credit for where we are now."

Newry had the first effort on goal when Rowe fired narrowly wide of goal.

At the other end Glenn Ferguson was proving a handful for the Newry back line and he put Neal Gawley in the clear but the winger saw hi s effort blocked by Newry

keeper Coleman.

However, there was no stopping Ferguson on five minutes when he fired home a low right foot shot from a gary Thompson cross - his 12th goal of the season.

The bright start continued as Gawley then nearly grabbed a

second but his shot was forced

away by Coleman.

Newry then forced a great save from Phil Matthews. The Distillery stopper diving low to push a great free kick from Hazley round the post.

The Whites had a narrow escape on 23 minutes when the ball came off Curran and nearly went into the net.

Any hopes of a Newry leveller were hampered when Thompson added a second shortly after the restart. Gary Browne played him in and the young striker showed great composure to complete the move with a neat finish. Newry had the ball in the back of the Whites net within a minute as Henderson lobbed Matthews – but it was ruled offside.

Matthews then made two good stops to deny Rowe and Graham.

After Andy Kilmartin went close, it was left to sub Austin Friel to seal the points for the Whites with a third after he latched on to a pass from Ferguson.