Portadown’s Matthew Tipton wants more but accepts derby outcome

His post-match viewpoint highlighted frustration at the negative aspects of getting caught up in a derby atmosphere - but, ultimately, relief at achieving his goal of three points.

Around 700 fans turned out to support a game in which local bragging rights took a backseat to the fact victory for the Villagers would have cut the gap on league leaders, Portadown, to just three points.

Portadown struggled for long spells in the face of Loughgall’s energy and enthusiasm but took another key step towards promotion out of the Bluefin Sport Championship by coming out on top.

“We need to be better overall but, thankfully, it didn’t cost us today,” said Tipton. “We want to play better obviously and win.

“Today, we scored one goal more than the opposition and can look at the rest in training.

“We’ve set our standards high as that’s what it takes to be successful, so we’ve come off with a win but I’m not happy.

“We didn’t score good goals as such and there was no real rhythm to the game.

“We’ve dissected the Loughgall goal and there were so many things wrong.

“But we’ve got something here now not previously at the club in terms of character and mentality.

“A lot of our signings were made with us asking questions about belief and they’ve shown that at times, including today.

“We had people willing to show that courage to keep on despite not playing well.

“Our passing too often was either intercepted or short, the movement was wrong and decision-making overall wasn’t right.

“It was a proper derby but we contributed to that by not playing our way so couldn’t take that aspect out of the match.

“We had some moments but too few and far between.

“What we were trying didn’t work and Loughgall deserve credit for that but we didn’t play the ball at the right tempo.