Aidan Watson made a surprise return to the starting line-up for Ballymena's first game at the County Armagh venue in two seasons, following the Ports' spell in the Championship last season, whilst Nathan McConnell also came in for the suspended Andy Smith.

It was the visitors that almost struck first though, with what turned out to be their only real chance of the game. As on 10 minutes Philip Carson's free-kick into the penalty area was headed onto the crossbar by Kevin Kelbie, only for Nathan McConnell to drag the rebound well wide of goal with the net virtually unguarded.

United also had a shout for a penalty when Lee Colligan went to ground in the penalty area as he shaped up to finish one of a number of encouraging United moves, but he was disposessed by Ryan McCluskey fairly.

From then on Portadown got themselves back into the game as firstly Kyle Leckey went close from a Gary McCutcheon knock-down which forced a smart save from goalkeeper Sean O'Neill.

Ronnie McFall's side took the lead on 38 minutes when the influential Scottish forward McCutcheon floated a corner across the face of goal which wasn't dealt with by the static Ballymena defence and Keith O'Hara was left unmarked to stab the ball over the line from close range.

The second half proved to be a much more one-sided affair with the home side constantly threatening the Ballymena goal. The Braidmen's only notable chance fell to Nathan McConnell who did well to skip by the defender only to place his shot well off target.

Portadown's Alan Teggart and Kyle Leckey were guilty of missing a glutten of chances but it was the latter who sealed victory with a minute remaining as he latched onto McCutcheon's ball following a poor clearance from Aidan Watson and slipped the ball under O'Neill for Portadown's second goal.

Manager Roy Walker told the Ballymena Times; "Our problems are simple to understand. We didn't have strikers who could hold the ball up that we could get up and get the ball off them in the right areas often enough.

"I could have taken any one of the two of them off - their contribution was nil.

"When you look at the contribution of (Gary) McCutcheon, the difference in the two sides was arguably down to one man, who Portadown could play off.

"It was a very disappointing outcome. We probably shaded the first half without doing too much.

"We didn't have anyone in the second half who could pass the ball well enough and we didn't create anywhere near enough."

Picture: www.presseye.com | Videos: Andy Nelson (Sky Blue TV)

Teams:

PORTADOWN	BALLYMENA UNITED
1: MISKELLY, David	20: O'NEILL, Sean
2: O'HARA, Keith	2: SMITH, Michael
3: REDMAN, Ross	3: COLLIGAN, Lee
4: CLARKE, Richard	4: RAMSEY, Chris
6: KELLY, Darren	5: WATSON, Albert (c)
7: BOYLE, Wesley	6: STEWART, Aaron
8: McCLUSKEY, Ryan	7: WATSON, Aidan
10: BRANIFF, Kevin	8: CARSON, Philip
15: McCUTCHEON, Gary	9: McCONNELL, Nathan
15: TEGGART, Alan	10: KELBIE, Kevin
21: LECKEY, Kyle	11: LOCKHART, Darren
Substitutes	-
5: CONVERY, John	12: McNEILL, Paul
Not Used	Replaced Nathan McConnell (67 mins)
12: McCULLOUGH, David	13: SURGENOR, Mark
Not Used	Not Used
13: ARMSTRONG, Neil	14: CUSHLEY, David
Not Used	Not Used
16: BAKER, Aaron	15: STEWART, George
Not Used	Replaced Philip Carson (67 mins)
24: MACKLE, Sean	16: ANDERSON, Noel
Replaced Wesley Boyle (28 mins)	Replaced Darren Lockhart (42 mins)
Yellow Cards:	-
Unknown	Unknown
Red Cards:	-
None	None