WHAT THE MANAGER SAID: Niall Currie's 'he needs hit' frustration as Portadown lose derby
Portadown manager Niall Currie finished frustrated at a 2-1 derby defeat despite taking the lead in Lurgan off Ahu Obhakhan’s first-half goal.
Here is the verdict of Portadown boss Niall Currie:
PERFORMANCE...
"It's the type of game you have to come away with something.
"Their game management was better than ours today...we need to learn.
"You're talking about a game where both goalkeepers had literally nothing to do.
"I'm really disappointed with the goals we conceded.
"The guy (Len O'Sullivan) travels 40 yards with the ball from the halfway line and nobody engages him.
"We back off, we back off, we allow him into dangerous areas (1-1, Jack Malone goal).
"And the winner's a real sickener...he needs hit.
"You (James Carroll) can't take touch, touch, touch and get yourself into a shooting position without a challenge and, unfortunately, that happens (2-1, David McDaid goal).
"Two really, really poor goals."
He added: "Our ball-retention wasn't really as good as I would've liked it but it's one of those situations where you reflect on the game, there's nothing between the two teams in my eyes.
"Everybody huffed and puffed today...it was helter-skelter.
"It's fine margins and a couple of individual errors have hurt us, poor decision-making.”
FUTURE...
"We need to be resilient over the season but that's a sickener today.
"You've got to find a way to come away with a point in situations like that...but we're not too far away.
"We're more than competitive with anyone in the bottom six now we've had a look at everybody.
"Losing Gary Thompson, losing Eoghan McCawl, losing Josh Ukek...big blows to us but it gives others opportunities.
"I'm not going to hang the players out, they've just got to learn from that very quickly.”
AHU OBHAKHAN...
"You're told one more challenge and he's getting sent off (Paul McElroy was waiting to come on before Obhakhan’s goal on 35 minutes, with the scorer on yellow).
"Whenever you get a referee and fourth official telling you one more...it could be a push, the slightest accidental clip.
"You can't go down to 10 men with 35 minutes gone in the game, you can't take a chance.
"We got him in at half-time and had a good conversation.
"But after the goal we stuck him out the right-hand side away from the physical challenge of the centre-backs.
"Of course you are losing something from that but he's still a very effective player coming from the right.
"If you look at the challenges he was involved in...show me a bad one?"