Irish Premiership: 5 takeaways from weekend video games

Coleraine’s relentless early-season march continued as they swept apart Portadown to maneuver to inside one level of table-toppers Glentoran, who they face on Friday evening in a recreation which shall be broadcast reside on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport web site.

Will Patching’s double and strikes from final season’s main marksman Matthew Shevlin and Joel Cooper ensured they continue to be very a lot within the dialog as potential Gibson Cup winners.

While the membership’s high-profile summer time signings have made a serious affect, Bannsiders supervisor Ruaidhri Higgins is fast to credit score the contributions of the gamers who have been already on the membership and is decided to maintain requirements excessive.

“It’s a learning curve for us, we can’t take our foot off the pedal at any point in any game, but that’s our third game away from home in a row and we’ve taken nine points, so we’re delighted,” Higgins instructed BBC Radio Ulster’s Sportsound.

“Will [Patching] is an outstanding talent and we’re delighted to have him but players who were here previous to our summer additions, there was brilliant quality here already, and we’re getting the benefits of it. Those players are being every bit as influential as the lads who have been brought in.”

Talking of attainable title contenders, Larne proceed to go about their enterprise effectively as they continued their successful sequence by condemning Glenavon to a seventh straight defeat to start out the marketing campaign.