Portadown secured a huge victory in the NIFL U20 Premiership as they saw off Ballymena 5-1 at Shamrock Park on Monday evening.
The hosts continued their recent uptake in form courtesy of goals from five different scorers, to stretch their unbeaten run to four games.
Tommy Smyth, Zach Cowan, Gledis Cakaj, Jake Gorman and Igor Rutowski were all on target, with Ronan Burns also saving a penalty.
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Ports boss Aaron McNeill was understandably delighted with the result and was full of praise for his young squad after the game.
He said: "I was very pleased with the team, it was our best performance to date.
"We moved the ball well, had lots of energy and were clinical in the final third with five different goal scorers and that was really pleasing.
"We knew playing Ballymena was always going to be a tough game and we had a few key players missing, but that allowed several of our U18s to step up again into the U20s."
O'Neill has been impressed with his side's ability to get results in recent games but is keen to ensure that they don't get carried away in what can be an unforgiving league.
"We are in good form at present, and we would like to build on that," he added.
"But in this league, you never quite know game to game if the opposition will have several first team players involved or not. This is the challenge and as a club we have really embraced that.
"It's another important part of our player development process and at Portadown we continue to give our emerging young academy players these great opportunities to test themselves."
It was a tough night for McNeill’s counterpart Kingsley Burrows, who believes that individual errors cost his side the game.
“We went into the game brimming with confidence wanting to continue our good form of late. I made seven changes to freshen it up, but it didn’t look like it," he said.
"There was an error for the first goal which put us on the back foot, then we got a penalty that we missed and after that we just didn’t react.
"We went 2-0 down, we had a free-kick in their half, and it was a poor delivery. They cleared and we then weren’t set up defensively. We just fell asleep.
"I’m not taking anything away from Portadown, but I don’t think the scoreline was reflective of the game and the chances that we had.
"We got back to 2-1 at half-time with a good set piece we’d worked on, but we didn’t come out in the second half.
"The third goal, I made a substitution, and he slips with his first touch and their boy nipped in and scored. The way the goals were scored you know you can work on so many things, but you can’t legislate for mistakes like that. We threw it in after that.
"Their two front boys gave us a hard time and credit to them we switched off and they took their chances."
The goals continued to flow in the three other fixtures on Monday evening, as Glentoran II bounced back from two consecutive losses to defeat Carrick Rangers Reserves 5-1 at the Loughview Leisure Arena.
Luke McCullough made his first appearance in a Glentoran shirt in 11 months in the game as the former Northern Ireland international continues his recovery from a long-term knee injury.
There was also a big win for Larne Olympic, who recorded their first victory of the campaign at Inver Park.
It was a convincing 6-0 victory over fellow strugglers Newry City Reserves, who remain rooted to the foot of the table and winless after eight games.
Andy Scott bagged a brace, with Max Hutchinson, Matthew Lusty, Shea Brennan and Jay Patterson also getting on the score sheet for the young Invermen.
At the other end of the table, leaders Crusaders Reserves suffered their first defeat of the season against North Belfast rivals Cliftonville Olympic, who climbed up to third with a 2-0 victory at Seaview.
Gerard Storey opened the scoring with a penalty and Padraig McVicor wrapped up the win to move the Reds to within three points of second placed Linfield, who weren’t in action.
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