'Sublime' Mannion too hot to handle for Portarlington

Kilmacud Crokes 1-11 Portarlington 0-12

Kilmacud Crokes Paul Mannion in action against Portarlington's Stuart Mulpeter during Saturday's AIB Leinster Club SFC semi-final at Croke Park. Photo: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Dermot Crowe

December 20 2021 02:30 AM

The ghost of Mullinalaghta past may have visited the Kilmacud Crokes dressing-room at half-time in Croke Park on Saturday evening.

Trailing Portarlington in the Leinster club semi-finals, another upset looked on the cards, but they heeded the warning signs and re-emerged a more efficient force to reach the final where they’ll face Naas.

The Dublin champions went in at the interval trailing by 0-3 to 0-7, failing to score for a 29-minute spell and shooting nine wides. Portarlington, who won the 2020 and ’21 county finals in recent months, were having a first provincial campaign in 20 years and playing the more polished and economical football, a smart and varied kicking game decorated with well-taken scores.

“A bit of an up-and-down type of game,” said Crokes manager Robbie Brennan. “I thought Portarlington were very good in the first half and had us under real pressure.

“We probably worked it out a little bit better in the second half and obviously some of the shots went over that we were missing in the first half. So that was probably the key difference.”

In the first half Paul Mannion failed to raise a flag and was relatively subdued, but he became central to an improved Crokes’ performance after half-time.

After getting off the mark with his first point in the 35th minute, he struck two more glorious efforts, and assisted in another. Yet while the intensity shot up in Crokes’ game they remained wasteful, shooting seven more wides in the second half, mostly in the third quarter.

By the second water break, Port’ were still leading, 0-9 to 0-7, with their stand-out midfielder Seán Byrne scoring the first point of the second half to stretch their lead to five. There followed four unanswered scores from Crokes, Mannion’s first, a brace from Callum Pearson, their match-winner in the county final, and the last off the boot of captain Shane Cunningham.

Jake Foster replied with a point, leaving Port’ two ahead going to the water. On the resumption came the game’s key score, the only goal, engineered by the intelligent link play of Dara Mullin, who was one of Crokes’ most effective players. He laid the ball beautifully off to sub Cian O’Connor who drove the ball powerfully to the net from close range in the 47th minute. Crokes were in front for the first time since the third minute of play.

Pearson had a shot for goal that flashed narrowly wide soon after but Portarlington, despite the influence of brothers Colm and David Murphy waning, were not done yet. Scores from substitute Stephen O’Neill and Adam Ryan restored their lead momentarily with 52 minutes played.

It couldn’t halt the tide and two from Mannion on the bounce and one by Cunningham had Crokes finishing strongly for a place in the final against Naas on either January 8 or 9, a decision which will be made today.

Portarlington manager Martin Murphy had no qualms about the result.

“I was very happy going into the dressing-room at half-time four points up but it just seemed to go away from us in the second half. We had a lot of players that broke down with cramp, and mystery cramps because we don’t suffer much from injuries like that over the course of the year.

“We have had nine players with Covid and four or five of them today were severely affected with cramps.”

He hailed Mannion’s class in the second half. “(His) two scores there in the last 15 minutes were sublime. You have to give him credit where credit is due. His quality came to the fore today. I think Crokes deservedly got over the line ahead of us.”

Scorers – Kilmacud Crokes: S Cunningham, P Mannion 0-3 each; C O’Connor 1-0; C Pearson, D Mullin 0-2 each; D O’Brien 0-1. Portarlington: C Murphy 0-4 (3f); S Byrne, J Foster 0-2 each; D Murphy, R Murphy, S O’Neill, A Ryan 0-1 each.

Kilmacud Crokes – C Ferris; R McGowan, R O’Carroll, M Mullin; D O’Brien, C O’Shea, A McGowan; C Dias, B Shovlin; T Fox, P Mannion, A Jones; C Pearson, S Cunningham, D Mullin. Subs: S Horan for Fox (39), C O’Connor for A Jones (39), C Casey for Dias (43), D Jones for Cunningham (55).

Portarlington – S Osborne; C Bennett, D Bennett, A Mohan; S Mulpeter, R Pigott, P O’Sullivan; K Bracken, S Byrne; A Ryan, R Coffey, R Murphy; J Foster, D Murphy, C Murphy. Subs: S O‘Neill for Coffey (45), J Fitzpatrick for D Bennett (50), C Slevin for Bracken (58), S Corcoran for Byrne (64).

REF – J Hickey (Carlow).