Niall Currie's 'be hurt, be disappointed but it’s about how you come back' challenge to Portadown players

The Ports played host to Ballymena United in a clash between two of the Irish League’s in-form teams, with a first-half Ethan Devine header ultimately securing a sixth successive Premiership win for the visitors.

The sole goal scored by Ballymena settled a meeting in which Currie could only express pride in the performance even if the lack of any end product left Portadown nursing defeat.

​”We were well in control of the game,” said Currie. "If you look a the possession stats you'll see that.

"We're normally the hunters, the team who can sit in, keep it tight and break out.

"We'd a lot of the ball today and, to be fair to Ballymena, they were resolute with two banks.

"We had to come up with the solutions and, unfortunately, it was one of those days if we'd played to midnight we wouldn't have scored.

"It just wasn't happening...we got into great areas.

"The final ball wasn't there...just one of those days, I've seen them happen before.

"But, certainly in the Premiership, I don't think I've had a team that dominated the ball as much.

"Ultimately, we weren't able to get over the line in the final third of the pitch.

"We made the wrong decisions, our quality wasn't there in the wide areas, our crossing levels weren't there.

"Our composure, our ball retention in the last third wasn't there and we were a wee bit wasteful.

"I don't think anyone could say we didn't deserve something from the game today but, congratulations to Ballymena, they were very resolute."

Despite the final scoreline, Currie refused to offer up any public criticism of a Ports squad promoted back into the Premiership and now sitting on 12 points from nine top-flight appearances.

"I'm not really going to go at the players at all - I'm disappointed with the result but certainly not disappointed with the performance,” said Currie. "I think there's a lot to build on here, we're still in the embryo stage but will get there and we've a lot of positives.

"We want to be that team that goes right to the end and we tried everything.

"We had two up top, we had four up top at the end, we went three at the back...ultimately it just wasn't to be.

"That was another good performance today...you could see the reaction of the supporters coming off the pitch, they could see a team that gave everything.

"There's no doubt that we tried every avenue...sometimes it happens that the quality just wasn't there in the final third.

"But we've a really good bunch of players and people so we've got to dust that down.

"Be hurt, be disappointed but it’s about how you come back and bounce back.

"It's not about losing a game of football sometimes but how you respond."

And Currie offered an update on midfielder Gary Thompson following his early exit due to a head injury.

"Gary has a very serious deep cut, I think he's 12 or 14 stitches, it's quite deep,” said Currie. "Those situations are usually okay after seven days so he'll miss the game on Tuesday night (BetMcLean Cup) but we'd like to think he'll be okay for next Saturday."