FAITH’S 2ND WIN WAS JUST SO SATISFYING

AS the Offaly hurlers drifted in the years after their stunning

All- Ireland win in 1994, Brian Whelahan began to reluctantly conclude that they had missed their chance of a second title.

“I definitely felt coming into ‘ 98 we had declined as a team,” says Whelahan Whe ( above, right).

“We had a meeting when Babs Keating Ke took over and the list of goals for the year, and I remember a lot of players had down d ‘ win an All- Ireland’ but my g goal that year was to win a Leinster Le to get us back, that was where I felt we needed to be.

“Definitely, at the start of ‘ 98, I wasn’t believing that we would win an All- Ireland. But after our three games with Clare, I knew we weren’t going to be beaten in the final.”

That they won put a completely different shape on the team’s legacy. Had they not added a second All- Ireland, they would likely be recalled now as a bunch of richly talented underage players that was fortunate to snatch an All- Ireland in 1994 and flattered to deceive thereafter.

“The success of ‘ 98, there was an awful lot more satisfaction and a realisation of what we had just achieved, I suppose, within the camp and within the team. Not just about what had happened that year but when it was all over that we could actually look back and say, ‘ We’ve put two on the map for

Offaly and no one can ever take that away from us’.

“The second All- Ireland establishes, I suppose, your county, where it is at and the consistency of your team over a period of time playing at the very highest level and to get that second one, it sort of consolidates who you are and who you were about during your career.” w