THE CONTRAST between Portumna and De La Salle as they walked off Croke Park yesterday is all that’s required to describe the difference between winning and losing this All-Ireland club final: one team dripping with talent; the other team dripping with sweat.
Portumna captain Ollie Canning removed his red helmet and there wasn’t a line of stress on his forehead. Canning did his best to generate some excitement in his comments but for the most part that was in vain.
“You never know how these games are going to go,” he started. “The two goals gave us a great cushion in the first half, and I don’t think De La Salle got out of the blocks the way we did. Our forwards linked up very well, took the scores when they presented themselves. So we can’t have any complaints about our performance.”
In defending their title, and claiming a third in four years, Portumna are already odds-on for winning the three in succession – although Canning wasn’t about to differentiate between any. “They’re all special. We’ll celebrate tonight, and maybe tomorrow, and we’ll see after that. Who knows? We’re back in the Galway championship again in a few months and our main goal now is to get back and win that.
“But the team is in good shape. There are a couple of us the wrong side of 30, but you can see we’ve a few lads in reserve. You can’t predict what will happen.”
His younger brother Joe walked past, politely declining interviews lest he take any more spotlight from his team-mates. Once again he’d done his talking on the pitch. “Look, he’s with a good group of players,” said his older brother, “and enjoying his hurling. He’s a real team player, and you saw he gave some delightful passes there today. His vision is fantastic. He’s just happy as long as the team wins, and that’s the ethos we’ve built up in the club.”
Johnny Kelly has nurtured that ethos to the point that losing is no longer an option. “We are a very confident bunch of lads,” admitted the manager. “We would have an aspect, not of arrogance, but of real understanding of what it takes to win. We’ve worked hard on the way we play our game. We have quality players, and it’s easy talk like this when you have quality players, but if you work hard enough it usually pays off.”
For De La Salle manager Owen Murphy the margin of defeat was disappointing, but not unbearable – not against a team like Portumna
“They’re a fantastic side,” he said. “If they go on and win four and five, they could be talked about as the greatest team ever. They are ahead of everyone else in the country. It’s a disappointing result, but we’ve had a fantastic year. We’re a young side, and hopefully we can develop. We moved the extra man back but there was no holding them. Our injuries in the first 10 minutes didn’t help, but it was about playing for pride, in the end.”
