Portadown 0 Larne 3

Nov 11, 2018 | Archive

Peter Wilson reports from Shamrock Park 

Larne eased to a 3-0 win away to Portadown at Shamrock Park to make it 14 games unbeaten and stretch their lead to eight points at the top of the Championship.

A dominant first half gave the Invermen a 2-0 cushion at the interval, with Adam McCallum conceding an own goal for the Ports and Patrick McNally heading home from a corner. It was Martin Donnelly who gave the away side their third with 25 minutes remaining.

With the first real chance of the match, Portadown conceded through an own goal after just 13 minutes. Ben Tilney found space on the left and his driven cross came off Adam McCallum and ended up going over the line.

On 20 minutes, Chris Lavery gained possession from Shane McEleney on the edge of the box, but his cross into the area just went past the head of Andrew Kilmartin.

Five minutes later, Patrick McNally headed in at the near post from Martin Donnelly’s corner to make it 2-0, despite the best efforts of those on the line.

A fine pass from Fuad Sule on the right wing to Donnelly then saw a chance created for David McDaid, but striker flicked the ball just over the bar.

In a series of corners early in the second half, Larne came close with Jeff Hughes forcing Declan Dunne into a fine save and David Scullion’s header was also tipped over by the home keeper.

Shortly after an hour, Conor Devlin extended his right foot to save Lavery’s effort at close range with his follow up hitting the side netting.

To complete the scoring, Donnelly raced onto Tomas Cosgrove’s incisive pass to calmly slot home past Dunne on 65 minutes to ensure the points would be going back to Inver Park.

Portadown: Dunne, Carson, Neill, McCallum, Flynn, Lavery, Kilmartin (Storey 68), Braniff, Wilson (Hutchinson 77), Carmichael, Douglas (Salley 64)

Unused subs: Blair, Thompson

Larne: Devlin, Sule, McEleney, Kelly, Scullion (Stuart 75), McDaid (Hassin 85), Donnelly, Tilney, McNally, Cosgrove, Hughes

Unused subs: Dougherty, Henry, Ramsey

Referee: Tony Clarke

Larne are back at Inver Park to face Limavady United on Saturday 17th November. Kick off at Inver Park is 3pm.

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