Lorrha breeze into North final after facile victory over Portroe

North Tipperary Premier Intermediate Hurling Championship Semi-Final

Lorrha 1-19

Portroe 0-10

Fresh from their county intermediate championship success in 2022, Lorrha are a team on an upward trajectory.

They have both the personnel and the resources to capture further titles in the coming weeks and months - if they can hold their discipline, and by the time the sixtieth minute arrived last Saturday evening in Nenagh, Tipp’s northernmost club had sealed a comprehensive victory.

They were soaring, completely dominant, yet they still could not resist the temptation to get involved in some last-minute histrionics. Port sucked them into a series of rows and melees, the type of thing a losing side does in the dying stages of a game which has gone beyond saving. Lorrha fell for the trap, and bore the consequences.

Two of their players, full-back Denis O’Meara and his defensive colleague Darragh Guinan, were dismissed outright by referee Philip Kelly. Both cards were a tad harsh, Lorrha will claim, and they probably were, but that wasn’t the point.

But that episode, really, was only a sideshow. This was a game which Ken Hogan’s side dominated and controlled. They looked confident and assured, using the ball effectively from the half-back line upwards and achieving a rate of scoring efficiency that any fully-fledged senior team would be proud of.

Patrick Bonner Maher was his typical self, throwing his body about in the manner that only he can. But it wasn’t all about Bonner. Lorrha have much more than just the Tipperary forward at their disposal, and they illustrated that on Saturday evening.

Colm Fogarty was virtually unerring from frees; Niall McIntyre was electric with the ball in hand; centre-back Michael Dolan, granted the captaincy this year, was leadership personified - he even converted two points, including a powerful long-range free.

However, the free-taking duties were, in the main, left to Fogarty, whose rate of consistency could rival any top-tier sharpshooter across the Tipperary club hurling landscape.He wasn’t bad from play either. It was Fogarty, after all, who slipped in Bonner Maher with a shrewd handpass to concoct the game’s first score.

Moments later the wing-forward would land his first free, but not before Michael Dolan and Port’s Kevin O’Halloran had exchanged points.

He zipped one sideline cut over the bar in the second-half which, to spectators, was worth the entrance fee alone. If Port are to mount any challenge in this year’s county championship, O’Halloran’s form could prove crucial - particularly with the absences of both Ruadhán Mulrooney and AJ Willis, each of whom have opted to travel to the states for the summer months.

Ultimately however, O’Halloran was never going to drag Port back into this game single-handedly, even if he had help from chief marksman John Sheedy.

Lorrha were simply too good, too refined and too confident. McIntyre smacked over the first of his three points in the fifth minute, and following another Fogarty free, the northerners were 0-5 to 0-1 up.

They entered the interval 0-14 to 0-6 to the better, having produced several moments of sublime quality inside the opening thirty-plus minutes.

In terms of scores, the pick of the bunch was probably McIntyre’s classy effort in the eighteenth minute. The explosive wing-forward shot into space on the stand side, picked up a gorgeous Bonner Maher handpass, and sent the sliotar rifling over the crossbar. It summed up Lorrha in a nutshell.

Port, it must be said, briefly threatened a spectacular second-half revival. John Sheedy slotted the first three points from frees and for a moment it appeared as if Nick Weir’s outfit were going to make a game of it.

Not so. Before long, Cian Hogan had struck his second, stabilising the ship. Then, in the fortieth minute, Lorrha conjured up a golden opportunity to put the game beyond doubt.

His effort was repelled skilfully by Diarmuid Boyle. It wasn’t quite an Eoin Murphy miracle save but it was enough to boost confidence levels and grant Port a chance to seize the initiative.

The play became frenzied, chaotic, full of minor scrapes and incidents that were mostly innocuous, but unnecessary all the same. In the end Lorrha got their goal, and it provided yet another illustration of their sheer fluency and collective rhythm. Cian Hogan swept down the stand side and pivoted towards goal on the diagonal.

The Lorrha full-forward then supplied an inch perfect hand pass to Bonner Maher, who swiftly guided the sliotar into the path of the onrushing Fogarty. From that distance the wing-forward was never going to miss. He finished with aplomb, capping off a fine player of the match performance.

Lorrha: Michael Kennedy; Conor Hogan, Denis O’Meara, Tom Duggan; Daniel O’Donoghue, Michael Dolan (0-2, 0-1f), Darragh Guinan; Martin Gorman (0-2), Ciarán Hough; Colm Fogarty (1-7, 0-7f), Patrick Maher (0-2), Niall McIntyre (0-3); Christopher Fogarty (0-1), Cian Hogan (0-2), Eoin McIntyre.

Subs used: Donnacha O’Meara for Gorman (55).

Portroe: Diarmuid Boyle; Jack Moloney, Justin Conroy, Adrian O’Halloran; Michael Creamer, Colm Gleeson, Jack O’Callaghan; Conor O’Brien, Anthony Bourke; Robert Byrne, Michael Breen, Sam Madden; John Sheedy (0-7f), Mark Gennery, Kevin O’Halloran (0-3, 0-1 sl cut).

Subs used: Brian Keating for Bourke (45); Ian O’Donnell for Moloney (48); Conor Byrne for O’Halloran (inj, 56).

Referee: Philip Kelly (Ballinahinch)