The net effect was that once the game started to get away from Portarlington, there was never any sign of it coming back. Andrew McGowan’s goal after seven minutes was the first Crokes score of the night and the two-point lead it gave them was as tight as it got. They just kept adding scores and winning the kick-out, never blitzing Port but never in danger either. A dripping tap fills the bucket.
McGowan’s goal came when Shane Walsh put him away down the Cusack Stand side of the pitch and a direct sprint infield seemed to catch Portarlington off-guard. The wing back shot early from just outside the corner of the large square and though it was well-directed, it was still watery enough for Osbourne to be disappointed he didn’t save it. The Port goalkeeper got a hand to it but only enough to push it into the top corner.
After that, it was a professional job. Dias was in lordly form around the middle and with Dara Mullin and Shane Cunningham looking sharp in the forward line, the Crokes lead just grew and grew. By half-time, both of them had scored from play and from marks and it all washed out as a 1-5 to 0-2 lead. There was a small chink of light for Portarlington in the black card picked up by Crokes wing forward Adam Jones just before the break. But even that ended up breaking in Kilmacud’s favour – they bossed the opening 10 minutes of the second half and outscored Port by 0-2 to 0-0 in the period Jones was off the pitch.
None, is what. Crokes emptied the bench and found a couple of brilliant scores from play by Paraic Purcell and another from Brian Sheehy. Long before the end, it was a matter of the size of the margin and little else.Conor Ferris; Michael Mullin, Theo Clancy, Dan O’Brien; Shane Horan, Rory O’Carroll, Andrew McGowan ; Craig Dias, Ben Shovlin; Aidan Jones, Shane Cunningham , Cian O’Connor ; Hugh Kenny, Dara Mullin , Shane Walsh .