Niall Currie 'over the moon' to have 'rough diamond' in his Portadown squad and predicts there's more to come

Teelan, who signed a Ports contract extension earlier this summer, made a sensational start at Stangmore Park, setting up Eamon Fyfe for an early opener alongside causing trouble with darting runs and wicked deliveries.

His fellow attacker Josh Ukek doubled their lead before Dungannon were handed a lifeline when Sean McAllister converted from the penalty spot after Tomas Galvin had been dragged down by Lee Chapman.

However, Dungannon faced an uphill task when captain Gael Bigirimana was sent off in the 38th minute and it became even more difficult with Rodney McAree’s side reduced to nine men following Leo Alves’ second half dismissal.

Summer signing Jordan Gibson came off the bench to net a late brace – his first Portadown goals since joining from Loughgall – to help his new club collect their first points of the campaign.

Teelan announced himself to the Irish League during an impressive spell at Newry City, netting 10 Premiership goals during the 2022/23 season – form which earned him a move to Crusaders.

His time at Seaview ultimately didn’t work out, but a return to Portadown, where he spent a period as a youngster, has helped Teelan rediscover a spark and Currie predicts there’s even more to come.

"He’s had a brilliant pre-season,” he said. “He's lit it up in pre-season.

"He's only a baby. He's only 22 years of age.

"This kid was thought of for big, big things when Stephen Baxter took him to the Crues for quite a reasonable fee at the time.

“We've just got him back enjoying his football. That's the biggest thing that I think we can offer.

"Everybody knows our club's huge, but I think the biggest thing that we can offer players coming to our club is they’ll enjoy their football. They’ll get a smile on their face.

"All we ask in return is that they empty their tanks and they give us every drop that they have on a football pitch. It's up to me to make sure they've got the quality. James is a smasher.

“And again, he's a great kid. He's only going to get better. He's still got a lot to learn. He's still raw in certain instances.

"He can get away from men, he can beat men and then he can put the ball in the stand or something! So we'll just have to smooth a few things out with him.

"He's a rough diamond that we're over the moon to have.

“Pace hurts teams — nobody likes playing against pace. We've got him and Josh Ukek on either side, we've got Ray Tulloch to come in as well, who’s lightning.”

Currie felt his team were deserved winners and doesn’t want Dungannon’s dismissals to take away from what he labelled a fine all-round performance.

"Everybody's going to talk about the sending off and stuff like that,” he added. “I thought for the first 20 minutes of the game there was only one team.

"We rolled the dice and I just told the players to be brave. We put a front four pressing and it worked.

"I know it ended up comfortable for us, but I still think we were pretty decent today. I don't want anybody taking that away from us.”