All empires fall.
Club legend and stalwart Aidan Fennelly was the manager last year who took them to the County Final playing a lovely brand of football. He refused to do the puke ulster football shite, trusting his defenders to defend, and his attackers to attack. Then they ran into Port in the County Final and they got picked open. No shame in it, Port are a generational side, had almost all the stars back, and just had too many weapons. Losing Damon Larkin after 10 minutes fucked it all up for Portlaoise too. The word is some of the older players heaved him, whatever, Aidan sensed how it was going and took off and left them to it. It left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of club stalwarts of that vintage. As it turns out, his brand of football would have been ideal for the modern game, but so be it. Portlaoise went off and hired Turlough of Brien, their first ever āoutsideā manager, and the puke came back into the football.
He did this article after the County Final last year.