Niall Currie points to stats as tale of the tape reveals Portadown frustration
Boss Niall Currie was left feeling blue as the black-and-white numbers told the tale on Saturday when hopes of a red-letter day to kick off the Portadown season ended in disappointment.
Danny Amos’ strike before the break left Glentoran with the only number of any real value at Shamrock Park as one goal resulted in three points.
And Currie turned to the statistics to support his post-match frustration behind failure to turn attacking potential into profit over the first half.
"The first half was fantastic, we turned them around and got down the sides, our transitions were brilliant,” said Currie. "Final ball? Couldn't clear the first man.
"We done the stats at half-time...seven times we broke into the last third of the pitch into their 18-yard box and hit the first defender with the ball.
"But we transitioned brilliantly, we broke out four or five times and I was over the moon.
"Coming in at half-time (1-0 down) was a sickener because we'd no issues dealing with them, bar 'JJ' (Jordan Jenkins) feeding off scraps really...so that was a hammer blow.
"I thought we deserved a draw...there wasn't very much between the teams.
"I couldn't ask for anything more, I got every drop out of the players."
Currie also added a warning of the need to “learn to be much better in the last third of the pitch”.
"I'm more disappointed in the last 20 minutes than anything...we stopped playing,” he said. "We brought Rayhaan Tulloch on and (Ryan) Mayse, players who want the ball to their feet and we started going long humping balls 60 yards.
"For everything that worked in the first half...the last 20 minutes when you're going for it and Glentoran still not causing us any problems, to have the opportunities to get it into wide areas and we never did is my biggest frustration.
"We've now Jordan Gibson at 6ft 4 and Ahu (Obhakhan) at 6ft 4, big bodies in the box.
"We have to learn to get something from a 50-50 game like that...a lot of people were expecting the Glens to come and give us a wee bit of a going over, so today held a lot of positives.
"But we've got to learn to be much better in the last third...hopefully as the season goes on we'll get something out of a game like that in future."