Niall Currie praised Steven McCullough’s “wonderful” free-kick which gave Portadown a much needed 1-0 win against Loughgall at Shamrock Park.

McCullough struck the winner with just three minutes on the clock, with Loughgall having a late goal disallowed for offside.

And Currie was delighted that the Ports could end their recent run of disappointing results with a hard-fought victory.

“I’m glad of the win, it was a wonderful free-kick and over the 90 minutes their goalkeeper was worked more than ours was,” he told BBC Sport NI.

“It wasn’t a game for the purist, it wasn’t good on the eye tonight, but we got the job done and I think we deserved the win, we defended fantastically well.”

“Results like tonight boost everyone when you’ve been on a poor run, and we’ve broken the cycle now.”

Currie was also keen to applaud the officials for disallowing the goal late in the game which would have snatched a point for Loughgall.

“The referee got it spot on as soon as the goal went in, we saw Aaron McCarey’s reaction and we were shouting from the sideline because the Loughgall player was standing right in front of him, so special praise to the officials tonight.”