By 
OMAGH Accies marched into the next round of the Towns Cup on Saturday when they eased past Portadown at the Thomas Mellon Playing Fields.
In their first post-Christmas fixture of the season, Stewart McCain’s men produced a cohesive and expansive performance that their visitors had no answer for as they raced into a 19-8 half-time lead before extending that advantage during the second half.
Having lost 30-14 at Portadown at the start of November in Ulster Championship 1, the Accies went into the clash as slight underdogs against the title-chasing County Armagh outfit, but instead of playing into their opponents hands, like they did two months earlier, they played their own game on this occasion and they reaped their rewards as skipper on the day, Ryan Mitchell, and Matthew Eccles both scored two tries, while Reece Braden and Joe Duff also dotted down and Conor Watherson Spencer knocked over three conversions.
“It was a good performance and a good result,” Mitchell beamed at full-time.
“I think we knew [on November 1 at Portadown] we hadn’t given the best account of ourselves, we’d played quite direct against them, so we wanted to move the ball a bit more and today we did that really, really well and hurt them. It was good.
“We defended really well as well. We didn’t give them a sniff and once we got ahead they were chasing and it’s always nice when you have that 10 point cushion.
“They came back at us at the start of the second half and threw a bit at us but we defended really well and scored a breakaway try [through Eccles] and from that point on we caught them a few times.”
Saturday’s win and subsequent confidence boost should stand to the Accies over the next few weeks when they take on Portadown [at home in the league on January 24th] and then Cooke when, should they continue to eliminate the lapses that have cost them so dearly in recent stages, they can climb the league table from their current position of fifth and have a real tilt at the Towns Cup.
“We didn’t mess about in our own half, we kicked deep and played when we got the ball in their half – it was limiting our errors and then playing on top when we had the chance – so it was very positive,” Mitchell observed.
“We want to finish as high as we can in the league and have a run at the Towns Cup, so every league game is important to get points.”
