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Match Preview: Glentoran v Portadown

Fri, 02/04/2021 - 01:37

Saturday 3rd April 2021, Kick Off 3.00pm

Glentoran have enjoyed 2 wins from the 2 fixtures against Portadown already this season. In our opening fixture of 2021, goals from Paddy McClean and Jay Donnelly saw the Glens race into a 2-0 lead within 15 minutes and dominate the first half. Further goals did not follow in the second half, however, and Adam Salley's 81st minute goal set up a tense finish.

In February's game at Shamrock Park, it took only 2 minutes for Conor McMenamin to mark his (second) Glens debut with a goal and Greg Hall's handball on the line after 29 minutes saw him dismissed and Hrvoje Plum convert the resulting penalty to allow Mick McDermott's side to take a 2-0 lead into the break. As with the game at the Oval, the 10 men Ports forced their way back into contention when Lee Bonis took advantage of a defensive mistake 4 minutes half time to reduce the arrears. As the half wore on, a mix of poor finishing and inspired goalkeeping by young Manchester United loanee Jacob Carney kept the Glens at bay until the 66th minute - Jay Donnelly converting from close range to seal a 3-1 success.

In the 9 games since that last meeting at Shamrock Park, Portadown have managed just 2 wins (a 4-1 home win against derby rivals Glenavon and a 1-0 win at Stangmore Park against fellow strugglers Dungannon) and lost their other 7 - which includes losing the last 3 in succession. It has been a difficult first season back in the top flight for Matthew Tipton's young side and they find themselves in 10th place after 26 games played - cut adrift of 9th place Warrenpoint by 8 points and only 3 points ahead of bottom side Dungannon.

Defenders Paul Finnegan, Eamon Scannell and Kevin Healy all missed out against Crusaders in midweek, but Tipton was able to select Adam McCallum, who had limped off in the previous game against Linfield. Further forward, ex Glentoran winger Chris Lavery will be hoping to return to the side after coming on as a sub against Crusaders, but striker Stephen Murray is likely to be on the bench again, with Adam Salley partnering Lee Bonis up front. Bonis has personally enjoyed a productive first season at IPL level - netting 8 times in 24 games to date.

Mick McDermott: “We fully deserved our win against Crusaders last week. We dominated the first half, got in behind them a few times, and created a number of chances. We were especially potent down our left-hand side where we put in some very good crosses and caused the Crues plenty of problems.  The second half was a lot more hectic with both teams playing long deep balls and they had a 15 or 20 minutes spell where they were well in it and very competitive though they didn't really create any chances until they threw men forward at the very end, which happens a lot in this League when a team goes behind and they’re doing whatever they can to chase the game. It was a great result for us. Although Crusaders results haven't been great recently, they still put out a very strong team against us, a team that within the last couple of years has been genuinely chasing. League titles I definitely thought we did more than enough to justify and deserve the three points. Jay took his goal superbly and I was delighted to see Mitch come back in and do so brilliantly to set up the goal with his hold up play and pass to Jay.

Portadown are coming here on the back of narrow defeats to Linfield and Crusaders, but they were both very tight games where Portadown created chances and maybe deserved to come out with something. We've played them home and away this season. I know that Matthew encourages them to try to play good football and if you let them, they will play good football and they can hurt teams. So we have to be ready to make it a hard, hard game for them here at the Oval. We’re in good form and have almost a healthy team with only Conor still to recover from injury. We're still assessing the position with his toe injury but everyone else is available and trained well this week. So we’re in a good place going into this one.”

As usual, supporters can access our GlensTV live stream of the match by signing up here. Live match coverage can be purchased for £7 (which includes access to a full replay of the action), while a delayed stream will cost £3. Remember, our stream will commence just after 2.30 with a match preview programme, and our match commentator Aaron Agnew will be accompanied as co-commentator by our legendary, quadruple title winning skipper Paul Leeman. This of course is free of charge to season ticket holders.