No separating Portarlington and Courtwood in thrilling Laois decider
Keith Bracken of Portarlington in action against Mark O’Halloran of Courtwood. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Theory tells us that underdogs rarely get the job done in replays. Mark Bates didn’t look like a man who felt the boat had just left harbour without him and his team as he leaned against Courtwood’s dressing-room wall and dissected this pulsating Laois football final.
This was the club’s first ever senior decider and they put it right up to a Portarlington side chasing a fifth title in the last six years, ultimately claiming a second bite at immortality in the Ballybrittas area when sub Dylan Keane tapped over a 64th-minute free.
Bates could have lamented the 15 errant shots that stymied their efforts, he could have leaned heavier into their two black cards, and the pair of eye-popping blocks made by ‘Port’ players when goals looked certain in the second quarter.
Instead, he looked at the day just gone and saw mostly upsides.
“Look, when you draw games you look back and say you could have won it, could have lost it. We played 20 minutes that game down a man. We're very happy with the way we performed as a group and as a unit.
“The team is set up that way, it's not individuals, and you can see that with the way we defend, the way we attack. It's constant flows of players. When you're down a player you have to increase your workload.
“Ultimately, that's a game, we were four points down [at one stage]. We could have crumbled, we didn't. We came back, we got a goal and went to point up. We should have held on but Port are excellent. They're very, very experienced.”
Plenty of these Courtwood players had won underage county titles alongside Emo with the St Paul’s amalgam. Portarlington had been their victims more than once, but this was different gravy and who could say how they would face their biggest day?
Bates knew by the way they trained on Tuesday night that they were primed and they started in fifth gear by dominating midfield, pressurising Port high up, and storming in to a 1-3 to 0-1 lead through the first quarter. Paul O’Flynn claimed the goal.
Their wastage up front even by then was wholesale and the favourites had already begun to wrest control back, not least through a Jake Foster goal and a two-pointer from Colm Murphy, by the time Jake Doyle earned the challengers’ first black card.
Portarlington scored 1-6 against a solitary point in that second quarter but they had Robbie Piggott and Sean Byrne to thank for two astonishing acts of defending when Courtwood attackers looked certain to find the net.
One was a flying block, the other a ball flicked off the boot with a finger.
Port seemed to have the game under control well into the second-half, all the more so with O’Flynn sent to the line for ten minutes, until a pair of two-point frees from Matthew Byron, son of former All-Star Fergal Byron, reignited the ground.
The champions made another burst for the line but were reeled in this time with a quickfire 1-1 from Alan Kinsella so the chance to go again is fair enough on both sides even if the champions were livid at the failure to give an obvious free close in with the last act.
“You don't have to be a blind person to see what happened there as far as I'm concerned,” said Portarlington manager Pat Roe who, quite literally, held his tongue twice when discussing some of the officiating decisions.
Port still haven’t managed a solid 60-minute performance this championship season but the likelihood is that they should be better again after this, especially with a number of key figures still reintegrating back into the team after belated starts to the campaign.
Full-back Piggott was outstanding, Patrick O’Sullivan made for a constant threat with ball in hand from the half-back line, Rioghan Murphy dragged them back into it in midfield in that opening half, and the attacking pair of Foster and Murphy were real dangers.
“We're not consistent,” said Roe. “When we're good, we're very good. We're just not consistently good enough. We started very sluggishly. Again, we went out of it in the second-half... There were circumstances that, as I said, I'm not going to elude to now.”
The replay, originally slated for next Saturday, has now been pencilled in for Sunday week given Courtwood midfielder Robert Tyrrell has a county senior hurling final to play with Camross in six days’ time.
: C Murphy (0-5, two 2-ptrs); J Foster (1-2); P O’Sullivan (0-3); R Coffey (0-2); D Galvin, R Murphy and J Fitzpatrick (all 0-1).
: M Byron (0-5, two 2-pt frees); A Kinsella (1-1); P O’Flynn (1-0); R Little (0-2); S O’Flynn, M O’Halloran and C Doyle (all 0-1); D Keane (0-1f).
: L O’Reilly; M Bennett, R Piggott, C Lyons; A Mohan, J Moore, P O’Sullivan; K Bracken, S Byrne; D Slevin, R Coffey, R Murphy; C Murphy, D Galvin, J Foster; Subs for Portarlington.
Subs for Portarlington: E McCann for Bracken (46-52); J Fitzpatrick for Slevin (47);.
: M Byron; D McEvoy, D Boland, A O’Halloran; Jake Doyle, R Flynn, E Slattery; S O’Flynn, R Tyrrell; N Dunne, C Doyle, P O’Flynn; N Donoher, R Little, A Kinsella.
Subs for Courtwood: M O’Halloran for McEvoy (HT); D Keane for Jake Doyle (48); M Doyle for P O’Flynn (55).
: S Mulhare (The Heath).
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