Focused on final retribution

Last year's All-Ireland final loss to Cork affected each of the Kilkenny players in different ways. Some yearned for the long days to return again, others needed to put some distance between themselves and the game. That was Charlie Carter's experience.

"It was just a hard thing, losing the two All-Irelands and being taken off in last year's final too. When we went back to hurling, I had no interest in it all." The Gowran man does not thrive in the sleety early months of hurling anyway. Heavy ground and driving winds nullify the qualities that have made him a permanent choice at corner forward since his breakthrough year in 1997. So the season was relatively advanced when he began to warm to the prospect of another campaign.

"We had a game against Cork for the P J Delaney fund and then a match against Clare. I got a couple of goals and points that day and it sort of whet the appetite. Because I hadn't been going well with the club either, I just couldn't get my head around it. After that, it just went from game to game." By the championship, normal service had resumed. Carter is an observant, economic sort of marksman, likely to nail 1-3 from maybe just four chances. Give him quick ball and he is happy.

"We are trying to be even more direct this year, getting the ball inside fast just pays more dividends. If you delay on the ball, you give the defence a chance to regroup. So we move it from the half-back line in. I think it's a known fact that both ourselves and Offaly move it directly anyway."

Along with D J Carey and Henry Shefflin, he forms a formidable full forward line. But Kilkenny are also capable of manufacturing scores from deep. In the All-Ireland semi-final win over Galway, Andy Comerford burst from midfield to score a restorative first-half goal and in the second half, it was Denis Byrne's wonderful distance striking that eased the Leinster side through to its third consecutive final.

Against Offaly in the Leinster final, Kilkenny sent a similar torrent of points raining in. Offaly were of course, written off as dead weight after that match. Inevitably, they arose to silence Cork a few weeks later and here they are again, awaiting Kilkenny.

"Just can't write them off," says Carter with the look of a man who is tired of repeating this.

"They look on every year as their last but they've been doing that for quite a while now. It is said that form is temporary and class permanent. It's a fecker to have to say that about Offaly but there it is. And I think in the Leinster final, Offaly hurled for 40 minutes and then threw in the towel. They had a great chance for a goal, missed that and then we came up and put six points between the teams. I think they stopped then realising they had a second choice."

Offaly's ability to re-invent themselves after a summer of provincial lethargy has almost come to be hailed as a great master plan. It is as if their Leinster final inadequacies are there just to bait Kilkenny.

"I don't think that Offaly went out to lose three Leinster finals," contends Carter.

"It's just they have this thing about their backs being against the wall. And sure you are the boys that spur them on. People love to come back after being written off and knocked down - in any walk of life. So maybe for this final, you might all shut up!"