The weather is playing turmoil with sporting fixtures up and down the country with frozen pitches leading to postponements in most sports.

One game that did get the go ahead last week was Portadown's Irish Premiership meeting with Crusaders at Solitude on the home side's 4G pitch.

It was a game that was decided by a flurry of goals in the second half, Crusaders winning 3-2, but Portadown's Ryan McCluskey felt that the game should not have been played.

"I thought that the 4G pitch was dangerous and I think some of the lads described the pitch as like a frozen lump of wood. You could not keep your standing foot at all so you would have to question why the game went ahead," said McCluskey.

"Maybe it was just the conditions that had made it that way, and our boys had trained on it last week and said it wasn't as bad as it was on Saturday, but it wasn't good for the game. It was also hard to judge the roll of the ball which is something Shane McCabe had warned me about beforehand," he added.

The player though refused to use the pitch as an excuse for the result, the Ports losing out after a mix up at the back when the score was 2-2.

"The pitch was not to blame for the result. We gave away a couple of bad goals, although they also gave away a poor goal, but I did feel that we were good enough for a point," he stated.

And he is looking for the Shamrock Park based side to return to winning ways in the coming weeks and make a push up the table with a top six spot a realistic target. Portadown are currently eighth in the table but only two points separate them and Coleraine who occupy sixth spot.

"We need to start winning games again now. There is nothing between the sides and we can still push on and get into the top six," he commented.