Cody full of praise

As soon as Brian Cody is complemented on another fine Kilkenny victory, he instead talks about a fragile result. "Well I thought it was a fierce battle the whole way through," he said, though not quite concealing the overstatement.

"I mean it was only in the last five minutes I thought we were safe, because contrary to all predictions, and yet what we felt ourselves, Offaly are still an excellent team."

Though they ended up dominating practically every sector of the field, Cody pointed towards a more balanced afternoon: "For me there was no telling who was young and inexperienced for Offaly out there today. They have some great hurlers coming on, and they were short one of the best hurlers in Ireland in Johnny Dooley.

"For the first half we were hanging on. We got two goals that were a great cushion because without them we would have been under serious pressure. Okay we began to pull ahead, but the pressure was always there. We were delighted to win. We had to dig deep and fight hard, and on championship day it's the winning of the battle that counts."

Cody's counterpart, Fr Tom Fogarty, mirrored the sentiment: "I think Kilkenny's experience told today. But we should have got more scores in the first half, and definitely the first 10 minutes. We missed a few vital scores at the start and you can't afford to do that against a team like Kilkenny. But I would be satisfied by the commitment of the Offaly players out there. Sure we've lost again to Kilkenny but no matter what people say the future does bode well for Offaly. There are younger players out there like Brian Carroll, Damian Murray, so I don't think the situation in Leinster is as bleak as people might think."

The task of lifting his team for the qualifiers is something Fogarty is not relishing: "Well we have 10 players in that dressing-room who have to play an under-21 match on Wednesday night. And we're out again on Saturday. We're not angry about that, but realistically people talk about developing hurling in Leinster and making it more competitive, but a situation like that doesn't help."