Portlaoise scrape past Crossmaglen

Crossmaglen (Armagh) 0-07 Portlaoise (Laois) 0-08

Armagh kingpins Crossmaglen Rangers lost an AIB All-Ireland Club football semi-final for the first time in their history as Leinster champions Portlaoise picked off an 0-08 to 0-07 win at Parnell Park.

Cross - who had won all three of their previous semi-finals - were outmuscled as Peter McNulty showed his deadly dead-ball accuracy with five crucial frees.

Rangers' Mickey McNamee did have an opportunity to square it up at the death but his 40-metre effort went wide in injury time.

McNulty bagged three successes in a fractious first half - which had the unenviable statistic of a free-a-minute. The Laois men were 0-05 to 0-04 in front at the break.

Former inter-county minor McNulty tagged on two more frees, and the elusive Martin Delaney's sole point proved the winner as Cross lost Stephen Kernan - son of Armagh boss Joe - to a red card with little over five minutes remaining.