Portarlington's hope's of win promotion are fading fast

 Roscrea 22 

Portarlington 7 

HAVING reached the cut-off point of the Leinster League's bottom tier in third place, the remainder of Portarlington's season will be spent contesting Division 2B.

Early season title aspirations were hanging on by a thread on Sunday as Ross Doyle's side made the trip to Streamstown to face the league leaders, Roscrea.

Portarlington came into the weekend in the wake of back-to-back defeats at the hands of arch-rivals Portlaoise, firstly in the league and then again two weeks ago in a crushing, last-gasp loss in the first round of the Provincial Towns Cup.

Roscrea were also in a sour mood before the game, having themselves been dumped out of the Towns Cup in similarly gut-wrenching fashion courtesy of a one-point defeat at home to Mullingar - a team two divisions higher.

That was Roscrea's first defeat of the season, having won all ten previous league games, including a four-point win over Portarlington in late November at Lea Road.

There were 15 points between the sides on Sunday, with Roscrea remaining top of the league, while Portarlington are left looking over their shoulder at Midlands Warriors in fourth place.

Ross Doyle's men got off to the dream start when the visitors put a converted try on the scoreboard inside the opening two minutes, much to the chagrin of a stunned Roscrea side.

That was Portarlington's only score of the game, however, as they failed to trouble the scoreboard for the next 78 minutes.

They did manufacture a handful of scoring opportunities throughout the first half, but the Laois side were met with a seriously hard-nosed defence from the hosts.

Roscrea opened their account with a penalty in the 20th minute and never looked back.

The Streamstown men struggled to break Portarlington down, but two penalties in the last five minutes of the half meant the hosts led 9-7 at the interval.

Roscrea bossed the second half, but incredible defending from Portarlington restricted the hosts to finding their points from the tee. Penalties on 50 and 55 minutes gave the home team an eight-point lead approaching the final quarter.

Portarlington had some positive moments late on, but Roscrea did finally manage to go in for a try on the hour mark, adding the conversion to complete a 15-point win that keeps them top of Division 2B.

Portarlington will have an opportunity to bounce back this coming Sunday when they host second-place Portlaoise in the third of a rapid-fire Laois derby trilogy.

ROSCREA: Mark Dwyer; Jack Ormond, Delacy Byrne, Mervyn Hayes, Cormac Murray; Jack Feeney, Brian Bergin; Peter Hennessy, Ben Armitage, Cathal Ryan; Tadhg Hogan, Ben Spencer; Gordon Michael Shannon, Andrew Hodgins, Seamus Treacy.

Replacements: Michael Fitzgerald, John Maher, Enda Maher, Luke Standish, Sam Carey, John Lillis.

PORTARLINGTON: Eoin Worrell; Reinas Balakauskas, Adam Lambkin, Jack Hynes, Peter Dunne; Andrew Evans, Darragh Perry; Aaron Costello, Conor Perry, James Dunne; Toby Neilson-Dry, Jack McCann; Warren Murray, Gavin Crampton, Jack Hennessy.

Replacements: Fintan Murphy, Daragh Jewell, Devlin Mclaughlin, Jason Yellop, Craig Shaw, Theo McGrath, Simon Doggett.

Referee: Keith Condell