Northern Ireland round-up: Portadown push on

Northern Ireland champions Portadown FC closed the gap on leaders Glentoran FC with a comfortable 3-0 victory at last-placed Newry Town FC tonight.

Two games off
In the only game of the night, after the postponement of Ards FC’s trip to Crusaders FC and Coleraine FC’s home match with Lisburn Distillery FC, Portadown never looked likely to secure anything but the three points. They are now on 62 points from 27 games, three behind Glentoran who have played a game less.

Arkins makes it two
Striker Gary Hamilton opened the scoring at the Marshes in the 19th minute with a fine individual goal. His fellow forward Vinny Arkins then doubled the advantage ten minutes before the break when he sent the ball looping over the goalkeeper and in to the net.

Second for Hamilton
Arkins almost added a third goal for the visitors two minutes before half-time but his header came back off the bar. However, Hamilton made sure of the victory for Ronnie McFall's men when he tucked away a centre from left-back Keith O'Hara in the 63rd minute.