I never felt we’d lose it, says Curran as he expects to face Kerry champs

He might have been kicking the odd sideline flag in frustration towards the end of the game but Paul Curran was never in doubt his Ballymun Kickhams team were going to come away from Mullingar with the Leinster title.

Even when Portlaoise picked off three points in four minutes to make it a three-point game heading into the last 10 minutes, the ex-Dublin star had the utmost confidence in his players.

“Yeah, we just needed to get our hands on the ball around the middle of the field,” he recalled. “We were losing the breaks and they came at us. But we’d expect that from Portlaoise. They kicked three or four wides at crucial times that might have brought the margin down to two or even one. But they were difficult chances, from far out.