Portadown manager Niall Currie issued an apology to the club’s supporters following their 4-1 Premiership defeat to Bangor at Shamrock Park – labelling the performance as “the lowest I’ve seen from any of my teams in a very long time”.

Ben Cushnie put the visitors ahead early before Eamon Fyfe drew the Ports level, but Currie’s men quickly found themselves behind again when Reece Neale powered home a free-kick.

Second half strikes from Liam Hassin and Mark Haughey further extended Bangor’s advantage and sealed their first away win since making a return to Northern Ireland’s top-flight.

Portadown have now lost six of their opening eight matches of the campaign, and while Currie admits it’s important they remain united in their bid to climb the table, he conceded the display wasn’t up to standard.

placeholder image — Portadown manager Niall Currie. (Photo by Andrew McCarroll/Pacemaker Press)

"Hugely disappointing, I’m really disappointed,” Currie told the club’s media channel. “The bottom line is the goals we are conceding at the minute, we’re giving ourselves an uphill battle.

"I don’t think we started particularly well, but we got ourselves back into the game with Eamon’s goal, then give away a ridiculous free-kick on the edge of our box again.

"We changed shape, tried to change things in the second half, but unfortunately it didn’t get any better.

"The bottom line is I take full responsibility. That’s the worst, without a doubt, and biggest disappointment of a performance I’ve seen from any of my teams in a very long time.

"We have to stay together...we had the players in for quite a while there and a lot of stuff was said. That will only do us good.

"We will get back on train again and we’ve always said we need to have resilience, but that was a hugely disappointing performance.

"We didn’t do anything for our supporters tonight and that’s the biggest disappointment for me because we had a good crowd out and that was totally unacceptable. I apologise to the supporters.”

Portadown enjoyed a superb Premiership return last season and impressive home form set the platform – only champions Linfield collected more points at their own ground than Currie’s side while they conceded just 19 times across 20 matches.

They’ve already leaked 12 in five fixtures this time around while no top-flight team has conceded more than their total of 20.

"We have to start shutting the back door a bit more,” added Currie. “I think our defensive record was as good as any team last year and the goals we are conceding at the moment are killing us.

"We had a lot of poor performances, in fact I’d probably go as far to say we carried seven or eight players. Ben Wylie was the outstanding player for our team, but we can’t do that.

"We had far too many guys with no shows and ultimately the biggest disappointment is they looked hungrier than us...that’s the lowest performance I’ve seen from any of my teams in a very long time.

"It’s a real pity because I thought we had a really good opportunity to get things going for the season, but you’ll not get anything when you’re giving the goals away that we are. It’s simply not good enough at this level.”