Portumna get out of jail with soft goals

Portumna  2-15

Loughrea  1-17

AN injury-time Joe Canning free, from deep inside Portumna’s own half, secured the reigning All-Ireland club champions a dramatic victory over great rivals Loughrea in an entertaining senior hurling championship quarter-final at Kenny Park on Sunday.

Canning’s sensational winner came in the middle of a maelstrom that lacked nothing in endeavour, excitement or commitment and, if the contest had ended in a draw, there would not have been a single neutral in the ground who would have complained.

Minutes earlier, Portumna looked to be on their way out of the championship as Loughrea had built up a three-point advantage entering the final stages, but then a defensive mix-up in the Town’s rearguard allowed Ronan O’Meara to nip in to flick the sliotar to the net for a 58th minute equalising goal.

With the game back in the melting pot, Loughrea’s Jamie Ryan and Portumna substitute Andy Smith sought to land the winner – their efforts were wide of the mark – but that honour in the end fell to Galway captain Canning with his long range missile.

The drama didn’t finish there, however. Three minutes into injury-time, Kevin Hayes was adjudged to have picked the ball off the ground, so affording Johnny Maher the opportunity to level the game from the resulting placed ball.

Although the free was positioned over on the dug-out side of the field, a difficult proposition, just to put this scenario into further context, Maher had been immaculate in similar situations up to this – scoring seven out of seven frees. The Portumna contingent held their breath.

Unfortunately for Maher and Loughrea, the free whistled across the face of the posts and went wide, so securing Portumna the semi-final berth and a date with Craughwell in the penultimate stages of the competition.

While Portumna did what they do best – win games – Loughrea will only harbour regrets from this one. From their perspective, they coughed up two cheap goals to the champions, the first from a Canning sideline cut that went all the way to the net in the 20th minute before the communication lines broke down for the second major two minutes from time.

Full report in this week’s Connacht Tribune.