Ballyboden St Enda’s claim first Leinster title in dramatic fashion

Ballyboden St Enda’s (Dublin) 2-9 Portlaoise (Laois) 1-11

A great season’s finale at O’Connor Park Tullamore saw Dublin’s latest emissaries to the AIB Leinster championship rack up the county’s eighth provincial title in 11 years. Ballyboden St Enda’s snatched a late point from Aran Waters and benefited from an even later let-off to win the club’s first provincial title before a crowd of 3,663.

Meanwhile, Portlaoise’s caravan of woe trundled past its latest staging post and left empty-handed, as the Laois champions went down to a third Leinster final defeat in four years.

Although this was contested on a razor’s edge for most of the hour – apart from a couple of minutes on the resumption, there was only a point or less in it throughout the second half – Portlaoise will agonise that they should have taken enough of their chances to win.

Well into injury-time there was also an opportunity to extend the match to extra time but Paul Cahillane – whose marksmanship has been such a feature of Portlaoise teams – watched his free from around 20 metres in a central position drift wide. Conor Boyle was also off target from a further chance.

Sufficient composure

The key moments up until then are easy to identify. Just before half-time having conceded a goal to Cahillane, Ballyboden showed sufficient composure to work the ball from their own goal all the way up the field where Michael Darragh Macauley, a bundle of energy all afternoon, slipped into space behind the Portlaoise defence and finished coolly to the net.

In a match of tight margins it didn’t take a clairvoyant to understand that the score might well be crucial. It knocked Portlaoise off a painstakingly assembled pedestal with its lead of two points and as Ballyboden acknowledged afterwards, sent the Dublin champions into the dressing room in a very positive frame of mind.

Then in the 50th minute with the sides locked at 2-6 to 1-9, Craig Rogers slipped the ball inside to Brian McCormack and his shot, although difficult and across the goal, needed a fingertip intervention from Paul Durcan in the ’Boden goal to touch it on to the post.

A goal at that stage in such a tightly balanced contest would have been a big score but instead the match resumed its cagey score for score nature.

Yet at the end of the afternoon, the Dublin champions deserved their win. They had made the crucial interventions to stay in touch or ahead and when the match was slipping into lost time they made the most of their chances whereas their opponents simply didn’t.

Sailed wide

Portlaoise goalkeeper Graham Brody came up to take a 45 in the last minute of normal time but his effort sailed wide.

Immediately on the restart Ballyboden attacked and a sweeping move ended with replacement Aran Waters kicking what turned out to be the winning score.

On a dry and relatively pleasant afternoon, certainly compared to Saturday’s monsoon season, the match started in a hurry. The pitch with its long grass was perfectly playable but heavy and with little or no bounce but Ballyboden came briskly out of the traps.

Sam Molony gave them a lead within 40 seconds and, after Rogers had equalised, Andrew Kerin dribbled the ball into a dangerous position and his shot went through Brody’s legs into the net.

Conal Keaney’s free set the lead at four, 1-2 to 0-1, but it only briefly regained that dimension, as Portlaoise found their feet and asserted some sort of control.

A run of four unanswered points from the lively Rogers – who was then taken down with a high challenge by Robbie McDaid who was lucky not to get any sort of card for the foul – a Cahillane free and the prominent McCormack culminated in an equaliser by wing back Eoghan Whelan.

The Laois champions did better at centrefield than might have been expected against Macauley and Declan O’Mahony and began to thrive in the second quarter.

The turnaround was complete in the 29th minute when Brian Smyth’s high ball into the square was bundled into the net by Cahillane. Macauley’s riposte had been foreshadowed by another good run, which Brody just managed to clear in the 17th minute.

Upset rhythm

The winners had good displays all around the field. Darragh Nelson marshalled a sound defensive performance, which upset the rhythm of Portlaoise’s recently high-performance attack. Up front ’Boden simply took their chances – just one wide in the second half - with veterans Kerin and the relentlessly hard-working Conal Keaney complementing younger team-mates like Colm Basquel whose 57th-minute equalising score was wonderfully taken.

In the end it slipped frustratingly away from Portlaoise but too often they had allowed good possession and attacking position to be closed down by an energetic opposing defence.

Ballyboden can now rest over the holiday. In February they will face the winners of next week’s quarter-final between Munster champions Clonmel Commercials and London’s Tír Chonaill Gaels in the All-Ireland semi-final.

BALLYBODEN: P Durcan; B Dwan, S Clayton, S Hiney; S O’Connor, D Nelson (capt), R McDaid; MD Macauley (1-0), D O’Mahony; D Davey, D O’Reilly, C Basquel (0-1); C Keaney (0-4, four frees), S Molony (0-1), A Kerin (1-2) . Subs: S Gibbons for Davey (34 mins), A Waters (0-1) for O’Reilly (42 mins), S Durkin for O’Connor (47 mins), D McCabe for O’Mahony (63 mins).

PORTLAOISE: G Brody; D Seale, J Delaney, C Healy (0-1); E Whelan (0-1), K Lillis (capt), B Mulligan; D Cullen, C Boyle; G Dillon, B Smyth (0-2), B Glynn (0-1); B McCormack (0-2), P Cahillane (1-2, 0-2 frees), C Rogers (0-2, one free). Subs: C Dunphy for Cullen (13 mins), R Maher for Dillon (52 mins).

Referee: J Hickey (Carlow)