And therein lies a paradox: it is unappealing because of the participation of Offaly, yet, when the spirit moved them, Offaly played more than one county's share of the most economic, effective, tasteful - in fact, downright appealing - hurling of the past eight championships!

This emphasises the failure, the foolishness, of the protraction of the back door experiment beyond the initial two years. The experiment had been a success - shaky and uneasy; nevertheless, enough of a success to open the road forward to the solid ground of the Open Draw. And the notion, or option, of further progress towards an equitable championship, by means of a double round, i.e. home and away, in the Open Draw, was widely acceptable. Yet those trusted to point the way forward came up with nothing more illuminative than more back door - and that in the face of the flagrant fact that the events of Autumn 1998 had tainted the back door with a nasty dose of woodworm.

Two years ago, Offaly were given the McCarthy Cup - they did not win it. They were beaten twice - by Kilkenny and Clare - and, by the time they were presented with their place in the final, they still had not beaten Clare: the score at the end of the 207.5 minutes was 48 points apiece. Better executives than Clare's would have demanded that they carry their three-point lead into the third leg; better sportsmen than Offaly - after the glorious success of their sit-in - would have suggested without prompting that Clare's lead stand.

(Isn't it the quare phenomenon that the strategy of the sit-in didn't even occur to the Gaelic football folk of DERRY(!) when their minors were done down, short weeks since? Where were Eamonn McCann and Nell McCafferty when they were needed?)

The first decree of the Truth and Justice Commission, in this most distressful country, will render the 1998 championship null and void.

Coming on top of all that, Offaly's sidling twice more through the Leinster back door could hardly endear them to a populace floating high on the stimuli of the '99 and '00 Munster finals; each in its turn fresh in the public mind from the preceding Sunday, and each containing adequate rations of those aliments which send puffers and poetasters of `The Unique Munster Final Occasion' scuttling to mount banks.

While Offaly slink onward again, Clare are stranded - and Loughnane has passed into history. It is rather too much to ask hurling, or any romantic, blood to bear.

``The great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us arise!'' In his message to the hurlers - and to the non-combatants, too - of Clare, Loughnane was the resurrection of Jim Larkin; and is now just as immortal.

Of course, that is not to suggest that these men were of equal stature. For one thing, Loughnane could never concede parity of esteem to forwards. That diminished him, and, in the end, undid him. Fine forward lines are assembled and melded - not spilt out of a lucky bag. Nor could perming any four out of 14 after Gillie's and Jamesie's security of tenure had again been guaranteed and graved, continue to prosper.

Paradoxically, when the end came - against Kilkenny in '99 rather than Tipp in '00 - slowness, or obduracy, about replacing Conor Clancy at centre-forward was quite as costly as the howler at the other end, which was the failure to take Anthony Daly off Brian McEvoy and put Frank Lohan - who would single-handedly have taken on the Tuatha de Danaan, the same day - on McEvoy.

Of course, Clare and Loughnane were unlucky that O'Connor lost form in the absolute prime of his years - as were Cork with Brian Corcoran. It is somewhat ironic that such losses of form occurred after these men consorted with the ``Show Me The Money'' mob?

After Páirc Uí Chaoimh in June and the departure of Loughnane, the customary claptrap, about pressure and sacrifices and burnout, was bawled about the land - perfectly conveniently, of course, for the ``Show Me The Money'' mob. So, once more: the individual who trains with an inter-county hurling team does not make sacrifices - he makes a choice between pleasures. The pleasures of supreme fitness and sporting camaraderie and liberation of ego and free hurleys and hotels and holidays compete against the pleasures of pubs and pissy pals or home and couch and TV or going to the dogs, or whatever. The individual chooses one out of many ways to enjoy himself - that is all.

A sacrifice is, of its nature, selfless: it is done in the service of others. Reverend Peter McVerry SJ makes sacrifices, Che Guevara made sacrifices, Captain Lawrence Oates made sacrifices - including, like Che, the supreme one, for the benefit or love of other people. What hurlers do they do for themselves, in quest of fame, fulfilment, recreation, perks. Hurlers do not make sacrifices. It is high time for abuse of reason and language to stop.

If all that is not true, our next generation will find themselves thumping their craws over another `abuse scandal'. Consider: every modern inter-county team has a highly qualified doctor in constant attendance; if a coach is subjecting players to `pressure' or demanding `sacrifices' or placing players in danger of `burnout' - or in any other way bullying or abusing human persons - that doctor is in duty and conscience bound to put a halt to the proceeding, and, if he cannot, to report it to the police; otherwise he is in breach of his Hippocratic oath.

Naturally, in the still amateur, non-pharmaceutical world of hurling, nothing of the sort ever happens, nor is in danger of happening, for the doc knows that all, including himself, are there for the crack and the fulfilment, and in the hope and expectation of glory.

Some of the Clare players may be a trifle stale, as may the man who's played a vast amount of darts or Don. Reinvigoration is hardly an unheard of phenomenon.

Anyway. The age, brief as it has been, of the omnipotent - or allegedly omnipotent - coach may be drawing to a close. Close - or harsh - scrutiny discovers, or attributes, too many errors. It is natural and sensible that some diffusion of responsibility, and culpability, should be aimed at.

One example. For 20 minutes against Waterford in '99, Limerick had an extra man, Ciarán Carey, who did a workaday job. But Mark Foley, who was capable of doing as good a job or better, was stalemated inside at No 13. In his last inter-county outing, Mikey Houlihan's mighty heart and matchless power were seriously discomfiting Waterford inside the 21. (Taking the view that the pashas of Corporate Park might, at any second, make the place all-ticket, Mikey established his squatter's rights inside the Waterford square, just as Dave Clarke was letting fly from behind half-way; the result was the last great one-inextricable-heap-in-the-back-of- the-net goal.) Next door to Mikey, the subtlety, the coolness, the accuracy of Carey would surely contrive scores - the move was never tried. Eamonn Cregan patrolled the touchline, and ne'er a Limerick hand dared stay him to point out where salvation lay. Of course, we'll never know whether it occurred to e'er a mentor or official. Still, to this observer, a strong case for collectivity arose that day.

On August 6, Cork's cabinet froze collectively, while the catatonic foosthering and bunching of their charges proceeded without interruption. We should not be too hard on them, for the sole solution to their plight was a bit of skulduggery of the sort which came naturally on the sidelines of long ago, but which would be intolerable - in Cork - in this law-abiding age, wherein respectable mentors do not encroach onto the soggy but sacrosanct sod of Corporate Park. Tough Barry - or Paddy Leahy - would have had a back go down with a most grievous injury. And, when Tough and his colleagues had finished disentangling the brains of the afflicted forwards, Tough would have had that back make a most startling recovery.

But those were the bad old times.