Offaly dream turns to nightmare

Leinster SHC Semi-final Kilkenny v Offaly: On occasions like this decorum demands that you allow some space. We caught just the end of John McIntyre's remarks to the press, he was noting that his side had been blown away.

"You have to dream in sport, but today our worst nightmare came true. We had dreamed that we might beat Kilkenny but a little bit of us dreaded that something like this might happen."

Not for the first time in his career, John's head will be on the block in Offaly. The block is seldom out of use in Offaly and those who would be swinging the axe might remember that there are obvious difficulties in bringing a young transitional team out of a season in Division Two to play old and motivated rivals like Kilkenny.

Was this bad for hurling John was asked.

"No, that's nonsense" he said with typical candour. "Kilkenny and Cork have set a standard that we all have to aspire to. It's not bad for hurling that they play to their potential. It would be bad if we stopped aspiring."

Up the corridor, Henry Shefflin was leaning with his back to the wall and speaking sombrely into a clutch of microphones . You don't get many afternoons in an intercounty career when you score 2-11 in Croke Park. Henry wasn't looking like a man who had hit the jackpot, though. He was wondering about Leinster hurling, wondering about his summer. You could hardly blame him. Kilkenny have trained towards excellence season after season, they have put structures in place and nurtured their talents. And when they blow a team away it's bad for hurling, it's killing the game.

"I know there'll be a lot of negativity around in the next few days, there'll be a lot of things said about Leinster hurling, but there shouldn't be. Offaly aren't 31 points or whatever a worse team than we are. They didn't have a great day today and after a while you could tell that'd they'd thrown in the towel and were beginning to think of the next day out. You have to be fair, that's only human. Most teams would do that. They're a better team than they looked out there today. "

Any value in it though?

"Well the value is that we got through. We're in a Leinster final and we're in an All-Ireland quarter final. That's the value. There's value in just getting the game under our belts. It had to be done. We'll go back to our clubs for a little while now and then we'll start worrying about Wexford."

"Wexford had a good win today and we know that they'll be up for the Leinster final. They are the Leinster champions and even though people might make us favourites we wouldn't forget what they are capable of. We know what they can do."

We decided against asking Henry how many dozen points Kilkenny had beaten Wexford by in their last league encounter at Nowlan Park.