Portumna 2-16
Athenry 0-14

Portumna supporters will hope that their side are saving a big performance for Sunday week's final but they did just enough to get past a wasteful Athenry side in a disappointing semi-final at Kenny Park.

Damien Hayes of Portumna under pressure from Athenry's Liam Howley.

Portumna are showing the strain in their legs of the amount of hurling they have played in recent years as they advanced to their fifth successive county final.

This will be a huge final for Portumna, not just to obliterate the controversial loss to Loughrea last year but a third defeat in five finals would represent a poor return.

Certainly, Jimmy Heverin's men will need to step up a couple of gears if they are to deal with fired-up Kinvara side, but on Sunday an Athenry side who shot fifteen wides just were not able to stay with Portumna.

Once more it was the brilliance of Joe Canning which provided the inspiration for Portumna ? his return of 0-12 from a variety of placed balls and play would have been greater were it not for four wides.

But Athenry, whose cause was not helped when they lost Eugene Cloonan to injury in the second-half, are the ones who had most cause to regret wayward shooting as they shot 15 wides in a game which never provided the anticipated fireworks.

The opening half was a surprisingly timid affair between these former All-Ireland champions with Canning and Cloonan providing most of the scores from placed balls, with Athenry on top early on but still leading by just 0-5 to 0-3 after 17 minutes.

Then Portumna showed some of their class and shot six points without reply ? Canning got five of them and Damian Hayes the other ? to lead by 0-9 to 0-5 a minute to the interval.

Another score or two would have ended the game as a contest but it was Athenry who finished the half the better and a superb point from the left by Brian Hanley and two from frees by Eugene Cloonan reduced it to the minimum at the break with Portumna leading by 0-9 to 0-8.