O'Byrne makes Offaly dream again

Seán Moran on how while Mick O'Dwyer may hate the winter cup, it's put a spring in Kevin Kilmurray's step

Amid the frequently deprecated search for significance in January's pre-season competitions, there was one moment of mild satisfaction last weekend when Offaly turned over neighbours Laois in the O'Byrne Cup semi-final. It reversed one of the summer's more larcenous moments, Ross Munnelly's last-minute goal that made Offaly pay the ultimate price for some sensational misses in the Leinster championship.

Kevin Kilmurray is pleased in a controlled sort of way his team secured the win even if Laois manager Mick O'Dywer was fairly withering about the O'Byrne Cup in the aftermath of the defeat, which stripped his side of their only piece of silverware from 2005.

"We're all still learning from Micko," says Kilmurray ambiguously, "but at least the result gives the people around Portarlington some bragging rights until the next time we meet."

Like any other county, Offaly have been sifting through the available talent and hoping to come up with a few answers before the National Football League rumbles down the runway in little over a week.

Sunday's final against Meath gives Kilmurray another day in the laboratory and he's glad of the extra outing and the further distance it puts between his team and the disappointments of last season.

"We've another O'Byrne Cup match and it's a final so I'm pleased and happy and proud. The lads have been under a cloud after an unfortunate year. The championship was a real kick in the pants and they didn't rise it at all against Carlow in the qualifiers.

"That's been a problem for Offaly since the start of the qualifiers. It's easy to castigate players but they have this innate thing about the championship - if they don't get on in Leinster, they lose interest - which is a shame because the qualifiers are a great opportunity."

Winning an O'Byrne Cup is as big an opportunity as any Leinster county gets at the end of January but all teams have their eyes on the league. For Offaly, despite missing out on the play-offs last season because of some narrow defeats, the priority is staying put in the top division.

"That would be my focus," says Kilmurray, "to stay in Division One. The games will be tough but it's important to stay up."

The league season has become a hard slog in recent years with a very compressed schedule creating difficulties for counties who have a bad run of injuries.

"The league schedule is hard on teams with smaller panels and Offaly are one of those teams. There are two hard matches to start, a week's break followed by four hard matches. You'd need about 25 players for that.

"Last year we ran up injuries at the rate of about 1.3 a match. We always had to replace someone for each match. If I didn't have the O'Byrne Cup, I'd have been looking for challenges because we need to fill gaps.

Cathal Daly won't be back and Conor Evans has gone to Australia so they have to be replaced. "Shane Sullivan was man of the match against Laois and Scott Brady has slotted in well at centre back where Shane played last year. We have the backbone of a team now, going into the league."