Offaly brought the aggregate experiences of their strange hurling summer to Croke Park yesterday and won an All Ireland final which will live long in the memory as the appropriate climax to an extraordinary season. On a scoreline of 2-16 to 1-13 Offaly took their fourth title in 17 years.
That it was their near-neighbours, Kilkenny, who ended up as losers on the day merely made the occasion sweeter.
Under the experimental structure of the current hurling championship Offaly were beaten by Kilkenny in a listless Leinster final just 10 weeks ago but were permitted to re-enter the competition at the All Ireland quarter-final stage. Their manager, Michael "Babs" Keating, resigned as a result of the fall-out from that defeat.
The irony of yesterday's remarkable victory lies in the fact that Offaly, among the most vigorous opponents of the new system, became the first ever "back-door" champions. They still intend to oppose the structure when it comes up for discussion this winter.
Yesterday's victory will have given intense satisfaction to those supporters among the 65,491 attendance who were in Croke Park last month when some of the Offaly fans staged a sit-in protest at the manner in which their All Ireland semi-final had finished two minutes early due to a refereeing error.
Despite the fact that they were trailing by three points at the time Offaly were granted a replay.
"Only for that day and those supporters we wouldn't be here today," said their most eminent performer, Brian Whelahan, yesterday. "This is a great day for everyone who loves hurling in Offaly."
Whelahan, who awoke with flu on Saturday morning, went on to pull a hamstring in yesterday's match but still gave a performance of sufficient brilliance to emerge as the game's most influential player.
Whelahan's childhood friends from Birr, Joe Errity (who scored Offaly's first goal and made their second) and Johnny Pilkington, the gadfly genius of a midfielder, had equally strong claims to that title.
For their part, Kilkenny could have few complaints. Their most celebrated performers never found their stride. D.J. Carey, the greatest hurler of his generation, was anonymous and failed to score from play. Phillie Larkin, their sturdy midfielder, struggled beside Pilkington's impish brilliance.
"We're old rivals and this is a bad day for us," Kilkenny's manager, Kevin Fennelly, told the Offaly dressing room afterwards. "But I can't hate you for it, only admire you. You demonstrated the best of your hurling today."
Offaly had begun the game tepidly and conceded what looked like a critical goal to Kilkenny within the first quarter of an hour. They recovered, however, and for the last 50 minutes produced as convincing a performance as Croke Park has seen in many summers.
"The key to this team is resilience and bravery," their manager of less than three months, Michael Bond, said. "If a team has that, then any manager can get them right for an All Ireland in the space of 10 weeks."
Behind him, Offaly's iconoclastic hero, Johnny Pilkington, was lighting the first fag of the day. In an era of unsmiling fitness fascism within the game, Offaly's lighthearted coup restores one's faith in the virtue of sin.