Portarlington edge Castletown in Leinster battler

Portarlington 1-11 Castletown 0-10

Last year's semi-finalists Portarlington were immensely relieved after shaking off Wexford champions Castletown in Sunday’s Leinster Club SFC opener at Chadwicks Wexford Park.

Martin Murphy’s three in-a-row Laois kingpins now face a derby quarter-final against Carlow standard bearers Palatine.

Portarlington had to pull out all the stops to prevent Castletown from defying sizable odds for the second week running after they rocked Shelmaliers in the Wexford decider.

A point from Rioghan Murphy edged the Midlanders into a 0-11 to 0-10 lead four minutes into added-time, before a turnover led to Paddy O’Sullivan slamming home the clinching goal in a one-on-one with 'keeper Darragh Brooks.

But the involvement of corner-forward Jake Foster against Palatine is in doubt after he, a Portarlington water-carrier, and Castletown’s Joe Ahern were red-carded after a late bout of fisticuffs.

Portarlington raised the first real threat four minutes in when swiftly transferring a kick-out to the inside line where Jake Foster offloaded to Colm Murphy, whose goaling effort was deflected over.

Murphy doubled the lead from a mark, before Castletown turned the tables by 0-4 to 0-3 after 22 minutes with contributions from Conor Carty (free), Jack Higgins, centre-back Colin Kennedy and goalie Darragh Brooks (free).

While Colm Murphy restored parity from a 25th minute free, Castletown continued to prosper as they forged ahead by 0-7 to 0-4 at the break with booming closing points courtesy of Brendan Halpin, Liam Coleman and Donnacha Holmes.

The Wexford champions re-emerged to a chorus of boos having kept their rivals waiting a bit longer than usual.

And the home-side weren’t shy about emphasising their intentions when