Portadown manager Niall Currie believes a “backbone of experience” has helped the club upon their Premiership return after putting a four-game losing run across competitions behind them by beating Loughgall last weekend.

Currie’s side secured immediate promotion back to the top-flight by winning the Championship title last term and with the likes of Gary Thompson and Ryan Mayse already in their ranks, the Ports chief added further Irish League experience to his squad this summer in the shape of Aaron McCarey, Shay McCartan and Steven McCullough.

It was McCullough’s stunning free-kick which decided Saturday’s encounter while only three goalkeepers have made more saves than McCarey (36) this term with the former Glentoran shot-stopper a calming influence between the sticks.

A fourth league win of the season helped the Shamrock Park outfit move into the top-six ahead of today’s trip to Dungannon Swifts, who have also started the season in fine form and currently sit third.

placeholder image — Portadown manager Niall Currie. (Photo by David Maginnis/Pacemaker Press)

In Portadown’s last Premiership campaign (2022/23), they only won six matches and are now just eight points adrift of matching the points tally from that forgettable run.

"With Steven, McCartan, Gary, McCarey, we wanted to get that nucleus of a backbone of experience,” said Currie. "I said to the senior players 'we need you', they have to help drive everyone on in a patch like this (four successive defeats).

"I told the players when we were winning there would be times like that where it's just about ‘go again’, ‘go again’, ‘go again’. I said ‘forget what's gone on in the past...we've an opportunity to be sitting sixth in the Irish League’ after all the criticism.

"I think we're in a decent place...15 points from 11 games is a big improvement.”

Despite the four previous results prior to their Loughgall success, Currie knew his squad possessed the quality to come out the other side and a conversation with the defence paid dividends with a third clean sheet.

"I look at those defeats...Ballymena we played very well, Glenavon you take a point out of it, Ards was really disappointing but the Glenavon cup game it was two poor goals,” he reflected. "I wasn't overly concerned (about the run) but what I was concerned about was the manner of the goals we'd been conceding.

"We had a chat with the backline and told them just to defend from now on. No touches in the box...if it needs to go to Row Z then it goes to Row Z."