MAYBE it's the absence of the Wexford hurlers on the west coast of America. While the All Ireland champions have been growing mellow in the sun, their footballing counterparts - with the stage to themselves - have registered two competitive wins after going 10 months without a single victory.

Yesterday's win at Wexford Park over a fairly experimental Dublin team, featuring only one of last year's championship selection, was impressive both in the spirit shown and the coolness with which they halted Dublin's comeback in the final quarter.

Wexford will presumably be happy to have taken Dublin's scalp for the second successive O'Byrne Cup campaign and advance to the semifinals of this competition in which they have been curiously prominent over the last two years as beaten finalists and winners.

Nonetheless, their prospects of success looked long odds for much of the second half and after some clever touches when playing with the wind in the first hall, their forwards looked uninspired right up until Jason Lawlor emerged to score twice in the last four minutes. He got Wexford's first second half point from play and followed it with an audacious chip over David Byrne's head after a mix up on the Dublin full back line had presented him with a clear path to goal.

What Mickey Whelan and Dublin draw from the experience is a different matter. Paul Croft played well on Scott Doran, restricting Wexford's best known forward to a point and keeping him anonymous for long stretches. Elsewhere at the back, nothing much was learned. Full back remains a problem and the two players tried there, John O'Callaghan and Paddy Feehan both halfbacks were implicated in the goals conceded.

Ian Robertson and Paddy Christie displayed their undoubted footballing skills and a robust enthusiasm for the fray at midfield against the experienced John Harrington and Willie Carley but neither is likely to feature that far up the field when the going gets serious.

The attack was well held by Wexford's defence although Shay Keogh and Barry Gogarty gave glimpses of their potential for summer duty.

One of the reasons a neutral might have had doubts about Wexford's chances was their catalogue of wides early in the match. Having put a lewd good moves together - with John Hegarty and Doran prominent and John Roche getting out deep to ball - the home side managed four wides in the first five minutes.

Dublin's attacks at this stage were slicker and more dangerous looking. For a side thrown together, they showed cohesion going forward with poor distribution and finishing letting them down. In addition, Ollie Murphy in the Wexford goal pulled out exemplary saves from Christie and Niall Guiden. Centre forward Senan Connell kicked a couple of points but otherwise the forwards were unproductive.

The main factors in Wexford's half time lead of 1-5 to 0-3 were the forward thrusts of Leigh O'Brien - two of whose three points were from play and a goal by Roche after 20 minutes. The ball was broken to him by Hegarty and the big full forward turned O'Callaghan like a corkscrew and rammed the ball into the net.

Five unanswered points after O'Brien's free immediately on resumption left Dublin poised menacingly a point behind in the 46th minute and with the wind behind the visitors, the match looked over. Instead Wexford held the narrow margin steady for nearly 10 minutes before reeling off 1-2 in the closing minutes.