Ollie Canning has no intention of throwing in the towel

“Well I’m definitely going to try stick with the lads tonight,” says Ollie Canning, laughing off the question of how much longer he can defy his age and keep winning All-Ireland club hurling titles with Portumna.

At 37 he was the oldest man on the field, and winning a fourth All-Ireland title, this time as captain, might well be the perfect moment to walk off the stage for the last time. He can’t help but have noticed how touchingly perfect it worked out for Brian O’Driscoll.

“Well I still enjoy my hurling,” he added. “I’m injury free, which is fantastic for my age. If I’ve got a job to do and the management feel that I can do a job for the team, then it would be a very hard thing to walk away from.

“Although I’ll probably need to be dragged kicking and injured out the door. So I suppose the answer is, yes, I’ll be back next year with the club for sure.”

Why not? It wasn’t the most convincing of their four All-Ireland victories, but Portumna always looked to have enough in reserve to see off first-time finalists Mount Leinster Rangers. Younger brother Joe – who finished with 0-10 – was one obvious difference, and there was nothing to suggest the club cannot peak again very soon.

“There is a great bunch of guys with Portumna at the moment, very level-headed,” said Canning. “Our goal at the start of the year was to win the county championship in Galway, which is a very difficult to win. If you look at the age profile of the team, we are a team that’s been around for maybe the last 10 years with the exception of two or three players that have come on. So there are a lot of miles on the clock.

“But the management were very careful during the year. We didn’t over train. We stuck to our three-times-a-week. So I think the management worked it well. We never felt we were burned out. We were always fresh for the games.”

They were always being reminded too of their heavy favourites tag, and no matter how many times older brother and team manager Frank Canning warned them, it can’t have been easy to ignore that. “Well it’s 15 against 15 on the field, and I guarantee you that none of the players thought about odds or favouritism.”

For Tom Mullally, the manager who brought Mount Leinster Rangers from the lost shadows of Carlow hurling to the All-Ireland stage for the first time, the problem was trying once again to rise above their tag as underdogs. For the first time all year they fell short. “Today might not have worked out for us, but it’s the first day it hasn’t, so we can’t give out too much,” he said.

“And Portumna really showed their experience. They have been down this road before, in a huge amount of ways, and in the first half probably added on a few scores at crucial times.

“We were probably struggling to create the chances we’d have hoped to create. Still it’s hard to put the year into words, really. It is one of those years that will live in the memory forever.”