Pride before any fall as Warrenpoint’s John Gill wants ‘integrity’ for final run

However, irrespective of results over the remaining four Premiership games, Town first-team coach John Gill wants the top-flight’s lowest-placed side to go out on a high - to play with pride even if it comes before the fall.

Kealan Dillon’s first-half penalty kick proved decisive at Shamrock in the battle between the bottom two sides.

On an afternoon in which the Ports could have kicked off the post-split set of fixtures with a significant step forward towards chasing down the sides sitting outside the drop zone, it proved a squandered opportunity as Warrenpoint recorded three points for the first time since February 12 to secure a slender lifeline and cut the gap on Portadown to nine points.

Gill, stepping into the spotlight for suspended Town boss Barry Gray, was quick to praise the organisation at the heart of the 1-0 success.

And Gill maintains the challenge the Town players must continue to meet over the closing weeks of the campaign is to build on the blueprint for a final flourish.

“I think it’s very easy when you’ve had the run we’ve had and in our position to then throw in the towel,” said Gill. “But we want to show a little bit of integrity to the league and be fair to everyone in the split.

“We’ll do that - I challenged the players today that, with five games left, to forget about the league table, finish the split on a high note and show people what we are about.

“We’ve lost, if I’m not mistaken, 11 of our last 13 games or so by one goal - a lot in the last minutes - we’ve been very competitive in a lot of games.

“I’m not playing a violin here but I think we’ve had a lot of bad luck over decisions and injuries but we’ve stuck together and I think we’ve got a good group here.

“If we do happen to go down -