Offaly similarly caught off-guard

One salient feature of Offaly's stunning victory last weekend is that nowhere were the team's chances less rated than within the county itself. The sight of Cork hurling supporters so outnumbering the opposition was surely unique in the history of All-Ireland semi-finals.

In the immediate aftermath, no one close to the team was suggesting that the side had bridled with resentment at being so comprehensively written off.

If anything, the motivation appeared to come from a deep regret that they hadn't defeated Cork in the equivalent match a year previously. It was noticeable that even the players interviewed seemed surprised that they had finally found the right gear after two disappointing displays.

It's a tribute to the personality of the team that their sense of proportion was as secure as it was. Johnny Pilkington had previewed the match in column in the Star and deemed Cork likely winners by five or six points. In the corridors outside the dressing-rooms on Sunday, he reiterated his view that the semi-final had indeed looked like a prospective win for the All-Ireland champions.

There is a sense that even the Offaly camp aren't quite sure how they manage to hit form on big days and fall flat when least expected to. It made for an interesting contrast to five years ago when Pilkington, having captained Offaly to a Leinster final victory, brandished the O'Keeffe Cup after beating Kilkenny and demanded of the crowd: "Who's favourites now?"

This curious desire to claim the status of underdogs in retrospect (the media previews had split 50-50 on the issue) was echoed at the weekend when Michael Duignan recalled the team's outrage at being "written off" before the 1995 Leinster final although they were All-Ireland champions at the time. It seems, however, that Offaly's players are now beyond such artificial constructs and more concerned with identifying what makes them tick rather than brooding over imagined slights.

Such realism was doubly welcome given the eventual braying noises from some Offaly people who had, of course, known all along that the team would dethrone Cork, but particularly because the rapidly developing tendency on the current county scene is to blame the media for everything, including the weather - and frequently finding a willing audience.

Before the 1998 All-Ireland, Pilkington gave an interview to Tom Humphries in The Irish Times in which he referred to the difficulties involved in suspending natural scepticism for match-day preliminaries.

"In the dressing-room every game is the important game, you know. Win this one and ye'll be alright lads. The All-Ireland, we'll go out and play that and it's the biggest thing ever.

"Two weeks later it's the club championship. We have to win that to get into the semi. Then we have to win that to get into the county final. We've never put one back-to-back or something, so that's the most important thing and so on.

"Sometimes in the dressing-room I think, `Wouldn't it be more important if one of us lost his job'. Then we'd be in trouble."

Pilkington has long been the brand leader in perspective, but the attitude extends to the team. Tales of their reluctance to blow the fuses in bleep-test machines are obviously exaggerated but they do convey a sense that hurling is a game, a pastime rather than a vocation.

This approach has combined with their reliance on technique rather than power to illustrate one of the reasons behind the team's longevity. In other words, the very fact that they don't take the field pumped up for every match means that they have more in the tank than teams with more intense gameplans.

Easy to rationalise it now, but Offaly's victory was extraordinary on all sorts of fronts, but especially in the light of their previous Lazarus-routine two years ago. Although there are comparisons which can be made, the achievements differ in a couple of respects.

For a start, Cork were a less flawed prospect than Clare in 1998. This may appear questionable, but, whereas both were All-Ireland champions, Cork were younger and widely believed to be on their way to back-to-back titles. Clare, on the other hand, had just stumbled into the minefield which was eventually to blow up their chances of further titles.

The fact that Waterford had held them to a draw had identified frailties which few had previously suspected. The controversial replay had deprived them of the services of Brian Lohan and Colin Lynch and the clouds of further controversy were gathering. Offaly had the advantage of having drawn a psychological line under their provincial shortcomings by changing managers.

Had we been assured that Offaly would rediscover their best form in '98, the match with Clare would have been regarded as a closer call.

More encouraging for the county this time was the input of younger players to the overall triumph which has revised the more pessimistic assessments of the county's future prospects at a time when they are now going for an All-Ireland treble at minor and under-21, as well as senior, levels.

Yet, in a way, the revival may be as ephemeral as the renaissance. What's to stop Offaly winning the All-Ireland and being unable to rouse themselves for next year's Leinster? It can be seen as a cynical manipulation of the new championship format - doing as much as you need to get by and then raising your game for the big matches.

And complaints have been made that it's a disgrace to see a team which played so poorly suddenly reconstituting itself and blindsiding the All-Ireland champions. But, actually, that's more the perils of the knockout format rather than anything else.