'The biggest honour of my life'- Ronan Coffey on captaining Portarlington to Laois SFC glory

Portarlington’s Ronan Coffey was the man tasked with the job of walking up the steps of Laois Hire O’Moore Park with the Jack Delaney Cup waiting at the top of it after they had nine points to spare over Portlaoise.

“The biggest honour of my life anyway so far. We show up in finals. I think that was probably the best one yet probably the most enjoyable but what a team, like I couldn't be prouder, unbelievable,” Coffey said.

The Portarlington captain had full belief in his side ‘from 1 to 15’ with Portlaoise’s style under Aidan Fennelly meaning that everyone went man-for-man. Coffey felt that his side should have been further ahead at the break with the chances that they had.

“Well they went man-on-man with us which we expected and I think we back ourselves every day of the week against any team if they go one-on-one like we have from 1 to 15 an unbelievable set of players. We probably should have been further ahead. We kind of missed maybe two goal chances in the first half but yeah, look, we won by nine points so we're delighted,” he added.

Portarlington’s big players stood up when they were needed and none more so than Jake Foster and Colm Murphy, who both scored 1-6 on the day.

“The lads were unbelievable, I think Jake hit 1-6, Colin probably the same around that. Darragh Slevin, I think it was his first final to start. Rioghan again, I can't speak highly enough for them all so yeah, unbelievable lads,” Coffey said.

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There was massive praise given to half-back Jason Moore on behalf of Coffey as well as outlining what changed from a Portarlington perspective in the second-half.

“Jayo was an absolute animal. First half, Portlaoise were very good, they kind of gave it to us. I think they scored nine points, a lot from play. I don't know what the stat was but they were very good. Second half, we stood up, we got a lot more aggressive, we got a lot more touch man-on-man and as I said Jayo was unbelievable again, he's just an animal of a man,” he commented.

Portarlington had been without Colm Murphy, Robbie Pigott and Paddy O’Sullivan for the majority of 2024 but Pat Roe was able to call on all three for the County Final. Coffey says he can’t imagine how hard of a decision it was for Roe to pick and choose as to who started. 

“I didn't envy Pat's decision this weekend, it was very hard. Bringing home two county lads and it would have been very hard to drop the two boys who were starting ahead of them, they’ve been unbelievable all year, Jordan (Fitzpatrick) and Graham (Weldon). They were brilliant and obviously, it's great to have them lads coming off the bench. I think they really drove us on,” Coffey said.

Next up for Portarlington is a Leinster Senior Club Championship campaign where they’ll face the Wicklow champions in Laois Hire O’Moore Park on the first weekend of November. The Port captain reckons they’ll worry about that once they’ve the celebrating done.

“We won't worry about that yet, I think a few of the boys are getting flights now this week, but we back our team. I think we're probably only losing Colm and Jake from the starting line-up, I actually don't know when Jake's going. We’ll enjoy the next few days and we'll worry about Leinster then maybe next week or the week after,” Coffey added.

One thing that Portlaoise excelled in was their quick distribution on kick-outs which caught Port by surprise as they had hoped to push up on the Portlaoise kick-outs.

“We probably didn't plan on doing that to be honest, we planned on pushing up. They were just very quick with their kick-outs. I think they brought a forward back to kind of overload us, so they had done very well in that aspect, we didn't plan for that to be honest. They probably got on top of us in the first half. The goal was a turning point again, like goals win games and it won today so yeah delighted,” he said.

Portarlington had led by two points with 39 minutes played but eight minutes later their lead had grown to eight as they fired in 1-3 without reply which is something that the Port lads discussed at the break.

“That's a blur at the moment like we targeted that at half-time, like. It is a Championship quarter, that's where games are won and teams die off if you get a good start on them, so we were delighted with that,” Coffey said.

When asked how sweet it is to be standing on the field just waiting for the referee to blow the whistle knowing that the win was in the bag, Coffey had this to say: “The sweetest thing ever. We've won the last three finals by double digits and we've always said, ‘oh it'd be nice to win one by a point’ but I'd win every one by 20 points if I could. It’s brilliant.”