Colm Murphy is on the road again but is confident Portarlington can succeed in his absence

PORTARLINGTON’S Colm Murphy put on a fine display of football in Sunday’s county final where he racked up 1-6 over the course of the game. He commented on how much this win means to not only him but Portarlington as a whole after a tough year.

“Unreal, dream come true stuff. It's our fourth championship in five years and possibly the most special out of four. The lads were written off from the start of the year. We had lads away, we had lads retired, we had lads move club due to relocation and to get over the line today was absolutely unbelievable. We were delighted,” Murphy said.

Portlaoise shook up the championship this year with a style of football that hasn’t been seen in a while but Portarlington watched closely, and Murphy explained how their plan ‘worked out on the day’.

“We've been watching Portlaoise all year and they've been racking up huge scores, especially getting goals in all their games. We always tried to play a nice style of football and we felt that if we could stop Portlaoise getting goals today then we'd have a chance and I think our plan worked out on the day,” he added.

Portarlington were relegated from Division 1 of the league this year but have turned that around to be crowned county champions for a fourth time in five years. Murphy commented on Pat Roe wanting the lads to peak at the right time.

“I think Pat set out from the start when he came in, and he said that he didn't want to go back training too early, that he wants to peak September, October and I think you can see that in our last two performances, probably our best performances of the year in the right time when you want to be peaking,” he commented.

Murphy has been abroad travelling for the past year and came back into the team in the semi-final and earned his spot on the starting team for the final. He spoke about the challenge of regaining full fitness and gelling back in with the team.

“It was difficult, you're coming back into a team who are flying, and I hadn't been kicking football in maybe six or eight weeks, but the lads were brilliant trying to get us back up to speed. I was given a programme to get back up and I wasn't fully fit but if I could help in any way, I was happy to,” Murphy remarked.

Portarlington led by three at the break, but Murphy knew they had missed a few key chances to extend that lead. He mentioned ‘the championship quarter’, which has been something that caught Portarlington out this year, so they wanted to right their wrongs and ensure that didn’t happen on the day.

“We were against the wind in first half, and I missed a goal chance, and we had a couple of other chances go astray. We could have been seven or eight up which was a bit worrying for us and we were kind of panicking a bit. That championship quarter, the first ten minutes in the second half, I think we really took hold of the game and converted our chances. Pat was saying that was kind of a downfall for us this year was that championship quarter, so we really aimed for that at half time. We were three points up so if we could get a couple of scores early, we might drift away from Portlaoise,” he said.

With a Leinster championship campaign ahead of them, Murphy is heading back on his travels on Tuesday but is confident the team will give it a good shot.

“I’m on a flight Tuesday night so that's my season done now, but the lads will go on and they'll have a great chance in Leinster, they're flying it, so fingers crossed for them,” Murphy concluded.