Seán Moran asks Dickie Murphy what he believes the county's nextbig challenge is.

Dickie Murphy's decision to cross the line last autumn took a turn for the better at the weekend.

The man once rated as the undisputed best hurling referee in the country was a contented Wexford selector last Saturday as the team met and exceeded the challenge of having to beat Offaly by 12 points in order to knock their opponents off third place in Division One B.

So, after a difficult campaign, Wexford can look forward to high-profile matches against Kilkenny, Clare and Galway in the month ahead.

"I'm still refereeing locally so I've gone from having most of the country giving out about me to a position where there's only one county doing it," he says.

"It's very time-consuming with training and plenty of meetings, but at the end of it all after a few wins it's well worth it."

Appointed along with Martin Quigley by new Wexford manager John Conran, Murphy is enjoying his change of direction.

His view might have been more ambivalent a few weeks ago after just one win - against Derry - from the opening three matches, which included a heavy defeat by Tipperary.

"I think that match in Nenagh was a bit of an eye-opener for everyone," Murphy says. "It wasn't that there had been any lack of effort in training, but we'd been concentrating on heavier work. I was speaking to people in Tipp who said that they had been doing a bit of hurling under lights while we were still doing a lot of gym work.

"The only hurling we were doing was at weekends and the lads decided that they'd like to go a bit early in the evenings (to training) and address that. It's not easy for them to get off at 5.30 and 6.00, but the players decided it would be worth the effort.

"We got a good bit of hurling done before the Limerick game in the brighter evenings, and although the match itself wasn't great everyone was pleased with the improvement and the result."

That nine-point win set up the showdown with Offaly in Wexford Park. Anyone listening to the post-match interviews couldn't accuse Wexford of getting carried away, and Murphy remains cautious.

"I suppose Offaly had a young team out and the match ran well for us. We got a goal just before half-time and went in four points up and with a good wind to come. The main aim was to win - rather than qualify for the play-offs - but once we got a good start to the second half, we went for it."

To an extent, Murphy feels that the team - albeit in spectacular circumstances - is no further than they had planned to be at this stage, but he looks forward to the coming weeks and one fixture in particular.

"If we get Kilkenny at Wexford Park on a nice day there'll be a great crowd for it," he says. "And even if we travel to Nowlan Park that's where we're playing Offaly in the championship next June 8th. So overall we're very pleased with how things have turned out."

Meanwhile, the GAA's Games Administration Committee is due to finalise the fixture list for phase two of the National Hurling League. With the three competing teams in either section now confirmed, it has been agreed in principle that the top sides in One A and One B, Kilkenny and Tipperary, will meet in the first week of phase two, the weekend of the 12th and 13th.

The other fixtures will follow suit, with second playing second, Clare-Cork, and third against third, Galway-Wexford. This format will continue down to the bottom three play-offs, giving a fixture list of Laois-Offaly, Waterford-Limerick and Dublin-Derry.

It has also been agreed that teams that played two home fixtures in phase one will also have two home matches in the coming phase - the idea being that every county will have played four home and four away by the end of the campaign.

On that basis, it is likely that Kilkenny will play Tipperary in Nowlan Park.