Bond stirred not shaken by mounting injury crisis

It was hard for Offaly manager Michael Bond to hide the shades of concern behind the obvious satisfaction. The battle over Antrim clearly won, but with two significant casualties both on their way from the winning dressing-room to the Mater hospital, things weren't all rosy.

First question then, how many men were lost?

"Well Hubert's (Rigney) injury is definitely serious," said Bond. "His shin bone is probably broken and that's big loss. Kevin (Martin) looks to have lost a quarter-inch plus off the top of his finger but we don't know how bad that will be. In Rigney's case, the pain was horrendous and he was getting oxygen as he was being brought away. As for Martin's finger, I don't know which one it was. I didn't go over for a close look because, you know . . ."

With Joe Dooley still unable to train, it appears that Offaly's luck with injuries is fast approaching crisis point.

The overall performance was still impressive enough to leave Bond smiling.

"Well, we started very sluggishly and didn't hurl well for the first 15 minutes. We don't play our best either on a pitch where the grass is at least an inch too long. But to finish on the score that we did then I can't fault any of the players. The five goals were the big problem the last day and most of those came about from our mistakes. You can't fault the full back line today. Kevin (Kinahan) played exceptionally well and I'd say Simon (Whelahan) was the man of the match. And once we put Paudie Mulhare on Gary O'Kane I felt that was the end of the Antrim challenge.

"It was also good to see Niall Claffey and Barry Whelahan come on and play so well. They're both young and I'm glad they played so well. We have 13 days now before the next one and that's a very short time. We'll have to get some intensive training because Cork have put some fabulous games back to back. But the attitude is still the same. We're still giving it everything."

Johnny Pilkington expanded on the nature of a comprehensive result like this. "I suppose it doesn't really suit us to win by that much," he said. "But I know it doesn't suit Antrim either. We've lost two thirds of our halfback line as well and that's not looking good."

Down the hallway, Seamus McMullan attempted to describe the scene in the Antrim dressing room.

"Total dejection," was his best offering.

"I mean, where do you go from there? I don't know where we're going to pick it up but we'll have to give it some thought over the next few weeks. For myself, it's just getting too much with the work commitments and that. It's a young man's game, for sure.

Manager Seamus Elliott, however, wasn't making any commitments about his future. Many felt he had got the focus right this season but in the space of 70 minutes that completely disintegrated.

"I'll have to sit down and take a look at things," he said. "We had some players that froze today, and whether that was Croke Park or not, I don't know. It just seems that we can't cope with the big day. After the two goals I felt we threw our heads down and that was it."

What now for Antrim hurling? "I don't know. We have some players who have the mileage going up and they'll have to take a look. The training might have to change or something but we were outplayed here and that's all that mattered. Offaly were in great form and maybe we took a bit of the backlash today. Nothing impressed me about our game and everything went wrong. Nothing clicked for us."