It's popular to contextualise defeat nowadays by saying that no-one's died and in this bicentenary of 1798, it's true to say that 30,000 people weren't massacred. But 46,078 - including Offaly supporters - were certainly stunned at yesterday's Guinness Leinster hurling semi-final at Croke Park when Johnny Dooley's last-minute dispatch of a breaking ball fired Offaly past defending champions Wexford at the very death.

All very redolent of the Guinness ad about one man flattening counties.

The talk of Wexford's special year was suddenly silenced after a match they probably deserved to win. It would have been victory against the odds given the scale of their injury losses and ultimately it wasn't to be.

In the dressing-room afterwards, as the newly-produced t-shirts with a bicentenary pike superimposed on the Wexford emblem hung silently on the clotheshooks, the upset was almost tangible.

Manager Rory Kinsella, whose team had come within seconds of buying more time this season for those out injured, fought back the tears - not altogether successfully.

"It's probably a cliche but the better team lost on the day. It turned on a flash. Everything seemed to be going well: we were three points up, four points, back to three, back to two, back to one, up to two.

"To be beaten on the last stroke of the game. What can you say? It is very, very disappointing. Seven months for all these lads have gone down the Swannee in five seconds. I can't say anything but good about our lads. They were magnificent out there. That was a magnificent performance and to be caught on the post was devastating."

Kinsella has been cursed since taking over from Liam Griffin two years ago. Last year's exit at the hands of Tipperary featured prematch injuries to two of yesterday's absentees, Rod Guiney and Gary Laffan, neither of whom were able to play the full match, plus a bad challenge which ended Rory McCarthy's participation.

He seemed to have surmounted the obstacles yesterday as the team gave a fine performance. Yet when the line between success and failure is so thin, there's bound to be agonising and a second-half incident gave cause.

"I don't want to be whinging but the ball Paul Codd had was not over the line. I will go to my grave, it was not over the line. I was standing beside him. His foot might have been over the line but the ball was well in and he put it over the bar. Instead they got possession and went up the field and scored. Those things happen in hurling because it's so fast and furious. But I'm not making any complaints. I'm proud of the lads, very proud."

In the victorious dressing-room, Offaly manager Babs Keating had good words for one of his substitutes. "We pick guys the way they were training. The one lapse was that the one player training better than anyone else was Paudie Mulhaire and in fairness he proved it in the end. I would say that Paudie was the man that got the few 50-50 balls when we put him in centre forward."

Goal hero Johnny Dooley spared the melodrama when describing the moment. "The ball broke back off the full back, off John Ryan and Ger Cushe and just hopped on the ground. There was a whole lot of legs and feet and I saw it hopping and I pulled on it. I knew the goal was somewhere and the luck of God, it went in."

Offaly will meet Kilkenny in the Leinster final on July 5th.

Kilkenny were fortunate to survive Laois who led by three points with seven minutes to go. Substitute Ken O'Shea turned the match with a 63rd minute goal and a point shortly afterwards, followed by clinching scores from Charlie Carter and Pat O'Neill.

There was a surprise in Casement Park where London visited Antrim and forced a draw, 0-19 each. Controversy attended the equaliser as Shane Elliott's ball looked to have been deflected out by London goalkeeper Brian O'Malley for a 65, but referee Pat Delaney awarded the point.

In the Ulster football championship, 14-man Armagh dismissed the challenge of favourites Down by 0-16 to 0-11. Enda McNulty got the line after 40 minutes but Armagh were saved by the huge contribution of Diarmuid Marsden, amusingly selected as a wing back but in fact playing at full forward, who scored 0-7. Armagh now face Derry in a fortnight's time.

Finally, Connacht favourites Galway underlined their claims with a 1-16 to 0-5 romp against Leitrim at Carrick-on-Shannon.