Delight for Portadownas hard work pays dividends

Portadown went into last Saturday’s clash with Ballymena United still smarting from a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of Cliftonville.

But a goalless draw with the Sky Blues coupled with a 3-0 win at Dungannon Swifts on Tuesday night has put a smile back on the Ports faces again.

The four points has lifted the Shamrock Park side from the foot of the table up to eighth.

And although the Reds defeat was hard to take at the time assistant manager David Miskelly said it helped them regroup and refocus again.

“It was a real team performance against Dungannon,” he told We Are Ports TV.

“That is something we’ve been working towards.

“We sat down after the Cliftonville defeat, we got ourselves together, we know it all starts with hard work.

“Obviously it’s been a hard couple of weeks for the boys, but we got back on the training pitch and started working on the basics again.

“A bit of a tweak in the formation has helped, but the players who have come in have been fully on the ball.

“The last two results and the clean sheets is a massive confidence boost going into Saturday’s game.

“You can only ask the players to go out on the pitch and give it all for the shirt.

“We’ll go to Crusaders, it’s all new to us, be we look forward to it and welcome the challenge.”

It will be a tough task against a Crusaders side who are sitting on the tails of Larne and Linfield at the top of the league.

Boss Stephen Baxter knows all about winning titles and he feels that hard work will keep them in striking distance for the business part of the season.

“When you turn up for pre-season training is when you start thinking about the title,” he said.

“Titles are won in the long grass as I say and the hard running when they run up and down the pitch and we knock the legs off the boys to get them fully fit.

That’s what wins league titles, not one off performances. It’s graft for eight months of the year to try and produce a team that is capable of challenging and all we can do now is challenge and other teams are the same.

“All along my feeling has been to be in the top four and then when you get closer to the time, hope that you are within touching distance to mount a sprint finish. That’s what we will try to do.

“It’s a very hard fought league as results have shown so far.

“You are going to earn every single point this season.”