Limavady United’s Andrew Law looking for league progress off Irish Cup pride

Top-flight Portadown secured a spot in the next stage of the knockout showpiece but only thanks to goals scored on 70 and 90 minutes to see off the Premier Intermediate League visitors.

Adam Salley’s looping header and a Chris Lavery drive which found the net via a deflection ultimately helped the Ports march on - and left Limavady boss Andrew Law to dream of what could have been on the day and how now to transfer that promising display into continued league development.

“We probably had the better chances in the first half and could have come in 2-0 up,” said Law. “That’s football and that’s why Portadown are in the Premiership with that clinical edge we didn’t have today.

“We had a lot of pace in the forward areas and it was our gameplan to turn them in behind and get chances from that approach.

“We wanted to show massive respect to Portadown but also thought we could go toe-to-toe during the game.

“We’ve worked hard to get here, this is our fifth Irish Cup game this season.

“I’m very proud of everyone involved and it’s very important we now take those positives into our league play and get something going over the next few games off this performance.

“We’ve not played before today since December 18, we’ve been hit with Covid and had six boys out of training this week, so the players have come here to Shamrock Park and done very, very well.

“In possession we’ve great individuals but collectively we gave very little away as a team.

“Our shape has been very good, our work-rate was excellent and we defended well in stages.

“It just wasn’t there for us today.

“I only took over the Thursday night before the season started and we’ve just been trying to build and build.

“We are in that building process...our aim is to get Limavady as high as we can.

“We are not going to be talking about titles or anything, just building what is a very young squad with many of those players still in that first year of Intermediate football.

“We’ve played Portadown now, plus Warrenpoint, Larne, Coleraine and Dungannon.

“That’s nearly half the Premiership sides.

“The boys deserve chances like this, you want to test yourself against the best and I don’t think we’ve let anyone down today.”

PORTADOWN: Barr, Hall, Ruddy, McCallum, Lavery, Salley, Conaty (Jordan, 74), Teggart, McLeod (Dupree, 54), Warde, Beverland.

Subs (not used): Brown, McKeown, Anderson, Kerr, Glenfield.

LIMAVADY UNITED: C.Brown, Carlin, Mullan, Brennan (Curran, 91), Devine (T.Boorman, 83), D.Brown, McFadden, M.Brown (Tennant, 83), R.Boorman, Doherty, Pomeroy (Wan, 92).

Sub (not used): McFadden.

Referee: Tony Clarke.

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