A long way from here to Clare

Micheal Bond leans against the brick wall and sighs as above him the Hogan stand rumbles and sways to the music of Waterford. Just a few weeks back, the Offaly manager would have been up there shouting for Galway.

"I thought that in the first half Antrim were definitely the better team but our forwards opened up in the second half and we deserved that scoreline," he reflects as his Offaly team prepare to leave the arena, business completed.

He is matter-of-fact about what must be done now.

"We will be looking to get a few of our injured players back, the likes of Daithi Regan and Johnny Dooley, which would obviously strengthen the panel for the Clare game. Hopefully we'll improve because we have to improve. Against Clare, we will have an awfully hard task, they will be tough to beat but . . . we will come here that day with high expectations," he declares.

Inside, Joe Dooley shrugs off praise for a shining individual display and comes across all cautious about Clare.

"Yeah, well things went all right for me in the first half but in the second, the ball didn't just run as freely. I suppose we settled about 10 minutes after half-time and we looked safe. But there will be a huge improvement needed if we are to have any hope against Clare, really. We don't have much time to do it, its just a matter of working hard. It's a big one now."

Goalkeeper Stephen Byrne shakes his head, and a sheepish grin flickers across his countenance as he recalls Antrim's first goal.

"I probably should have caught it. I went to bat it down and it spun back at me and I dunno, the umpire said it was over the line. Maybe it was. We'll have to see it on the TV.

"I was delighted though to get the few balls that came in afterwards, that settled me. I was a wee bit nervous, but the way I look at it is, if you make a mistake you have to try and build yourself up again. It's funny, for the last three or four games we played I wasn't a bit nervous but today I was for some reason. Maybe because we were expected to win. But, sure, we got through it anyway."

Some of the Antrim players leave to catch the second quarterfinal. Team manager Sean McGuinness is seated on a bench, accepting it all.

"We shot six wides before they scored. You can't do that against class teams," he reasons.

"The lack of pitch practice showed because we stayed with them in terms of fitness. We should have had eight training sessions and two challenges since July but we just got one session. That obviously disrupted us. But that's not to take from Offaly. They deserved that."

Again, he was forced to turn to the same old failings.

"If, if, if. If they (Antrim) had taken the early scores it might have been a different story. But you have to take those chances under pressure. Offaly did that and then we were chasing."

He pauses and then a final thought occurs.

"I'll tell you what, though, our lads played the shirts of their backs out."