Portadown boss Niall Currie full of praise for key pair after making first starts in four months during Irish Cup defeat to Cliftonville

McElroy has only registered two substitute league appearances since suffering a knee injury against H&W Welders in October while centre-back Rodgers was expected to miss the rest of this season with an ACL injury sustained in November’s draw with Bangor.

The duo, who both signed contract extensions with the Shamrock Park outfit last summer, impressed despite the Ports enduring a first cup defeat in 11 matches throughout this campaign as Cliftonville booked their spot in the semi-final thanks to a Luke Wilson own goal and late Sam Ashford strike.

Rodgers went down after 60 minutes on Friday night and immediately signalled to the bench that he needed replaced, sparking fears that he’d suffered a recurrence of the same issue that sidelined him for months, but Currie has confirmed he, remarkably, should be fine for next weekend’s BetMcLean Cup final trip to Linfield.

"Chris is fine,” he said. “He panicked and felt a wee twinge but the guy has no ACL so he's not going to do any more harm.

"He came over to me apologising and said not to rule him out for the rest of the season...he said he panicked a wee bit but he's grand and will go again. He will train hopefully on Tuesday and Thursday night.

"If we have Chrissy Rodgers available for the rest of the season it's nothing but a plus - it's a plus we weren't expecting with a guy who did his ACL. He deserves massive credit...he's a gym bunny and has went away and built up every possible muscle you have in the knee to support it.

"I have never seen a player play at this level without an ACL...I thought he was very good for the 60 minutes he played. You wouldn't have thought that guy hadn't played in four-and-a-half months.

"Special praise to Paul Mac too. He has had 63 minutes with the reserves and two weeks training. I'm really pleased with both of them and it gives me good options for the cup final fingers crossed."

The duo are welcome additions to a Ports squad that face a further nine league matches as they target an immediate return to the Premiership.

Ex-Ballymena United ace McElroy had started the season with seven goals in 11 appearances and Currie will hope to get him back to similar levels heading into the business end of the campaign.

"To have Paul Mac on the way back...he was a huge loss,” he added. “Paul was certainly figured to be the most prolific player in the Championship this season and he was doing really well before he got injured.

"We've had some really big losses this season...we had four-and-a-half months without Dougie Wilson as well, but people don't take those things into consideration.

"We were playing midfielders at centre-back for eight or nine games this season and you still get hammered for it - it is what it is, we need a bit of luck and that's the bottom line.

"If we have everybody available to us that we do at the moment then we'll be able to cope with the games."