A week which could define a season

All-Ireland Hurling Qualifiers Focus on Offaly: Keith Duggan talks to Offaly manager Mike McNamara about the decision to make his young players play three games in a week and the difficulties of lifting them after losing the first two

On Wednesday night at Nowlan Park, eternal rivals Kilkenny and Offaly met in the Leinster under-21 championship. The scoreline, 2-21 to 0-10, bore portents of the now familiar vista of the young Cats remorselessly blowing the opposition out of it and of the diminishing fortunes of Offaly hurling.

The truth is more complex. Nine of the Offaly players who participated in last Sunday's thriller against Wexford played at Nowlan Park. Far from having recovered from the weekend exertions, they contested the first half but by the restart they were physically and emotionally spent.

Now, Mike McNamara faces the problem not only of turning his senior team around a mere seven days after a tough loss but the additional burden of lifting and restoring over half the players to whom this level of the game is completely new. He is uncertain if several youngsters who have merited a place in the team to play Dublin will be able to summon the energy and mental strength required.

"As soon as we saw the fixture list for this week, we put in an immediate request for a postponement of this game but our opponents or the Leinster Council in its wisdom could not grant that. But I cannot see the logic, after all the preparation, for squeezing so much into a week.

"And I believe it is humanly impossible for these young lads to recover from the effects of playing two games in a week, let alone three. Bear in mind we ease down on training 10 days before a game."

McNamara's annoyance is understandable. As well as being the most thrilling game of the hurling summer, last weekend's derby offered a fresh perspective on Offaly hurling. For longer than anyone cares to remember, we had been treated to the spectre of the eternal 15 rising and falling and rising again.

It was true that age could not wither the likes of John Troy, the Pilkington boys, the Dooley brothers, the indomitable Whelehans or players like Kevin Martin or Kevin Kinahan. But still, the constancy of that team over the years was interpreted as a sign of less than compelling understudies.

But overnight have come new names like Brian Mullins, Brian Carroll and Michael Cordial to cast a bright light on the road ahead for Offaly hurling. Given that the general state of the game seems to ebb and flow in correspondence with Offaly, their unveiling is heartening.

"People saying Mike Mac came in and discovered these players - it's not the case. It is the coaching done in the likes of Birr and Coolderry that is responsible. Offaly was responsible for giving us some of the greatest players seen in the game over the last decade. It just so happened that when I came along, many had departed for one reason or another. And I was delighted to see that these young fellas with talent and will were there."

Still, McNamara had to pick them. The selection of young Brian Mullins over Stephen Byrne, one of the most celebrated shot-stoppers in the game, was a bold opening championship gambit.

"I think it was also the toughest hurling decision I made in about 16 years," says McNamara.

Byrne was the one Offaly hurler who McNamara knew personally when he took over. From the first night, the Banagher player did everything to make the trainer feel welcome. On nights when numbers were depleted because of Birr's club commitments, it was Byrne who cracked the jokes or made the speeches to keep things together when it would have been easier to let them fall apart in the darkness.

Byrne made McNamara's case easier and to inform him that he was being overlooked for the first game of a summer was a hell of way to have to make a repayment.

In response, Byrne just smiled and replied: "Sure I could see that for myself." Furthermore, he took Brian Mullins aside and gave him an hour of coaching.

"That alone speaks volumes for Stephen Byrne," says McNamara.

That selection was in keeping with McNamara's basic philosophy that hurling is a selfless game, that while there is still room for individual expression, for a county like Offaly to thrive, everyone has to bang the same drum.

He rejects the suggestions that Offaly faded in last Sunday's cloying heat, pointing out that although they were ultimately missed, three chances to restore parity were created in the final crucial minutes.

In the broad term, he reckons that game will prove invaluable to the younger members of his team. Wexford, he says, are about two years ahead of Offaly in terms of development at present.

But all of that is water under the bridge. Dublin in Croke Park is a mightily different proposition than it was two years - or even one year - ago. McNamara is not the only one to salute what Marty Morris has done for hurling in the capital and, as with the under-21 match involving Offaly, he does not believe that the scoreline of last Saturday evening's game between Dublin and Kilkenny at Nowlan Park tells the full story.

"They have made great strides over the season and for a good stretch of that game they presented a significant challenge."

McNamara says playing in Croke Park is an honour but had hoped to make it there in search of provincial honours. He finds it incredible that a county as rich as Offaly has not won the Leinster championship since 1995. The objective was to correct that and to that end, the loss to Wexford brings a sense of immediate failure.

Time restrictions alone have forced McNamara's boys to divorce themselves from ruminating upon the loss.

It is do or die from here on in. Just the way they like it in Offaly.