The countdown to Saturday week's Leinster senior football final between Offaly and Meath began with Offaly manager Tommy Lyons showering bouquets of praise on the All-Ireland champions.

"Meath are the best team in Ireland when they decide to play," he said yesterday. "There is no question about that. For the first 20 minutes on Sunday they were awesome. They are great distributors of the ball, they rarely give it away. Sean Boylan, his script does not weaken change.

"Sean Boylan got it very, very right and proved once again why he is an outstanding manager. He used the Graham Geraghty thing to very strong effect and his tactical use of Colm Coyle, I thought, really won the game"

Lyons's gut feeling all along was that Meath would come through. "Really I thought Kildare left it completely behind them the last day, and once they did that I didn't see Meath giving them another chance.

"Kildare threw everything into attack and that proved costly. Glen Ryan trying to go forward to win the game left Tommy Dowd way back on his own. I think that's what lost the game for Kildare in the end."

What likely effects, if any, would the dismissals of Mark O'Reilly and Darren Fay in Sunday's game have on the final? "I think the sendings off will have given Meath a bigger cause, a greater incentive for the final. People have been asking me since Sunday's match, and all I can say is we didn't get any players sent off. We weren't there playing them on Sunday.

"Their replacements will be players who have either won All-Ireland or Leinster medals last year. So, for example, they will probably end up with someone like Martin O'Connell at full back. They have plenty of talent on the bench."

He is pleased to see the end of the Meath-Kildare marathon. "It's been a long wait for us and at least we know for certain now who we will be playing against in the final." It may have slipped the mind by this stage but Offaly, too, have played five matches so far in the Leinster championship, beating Longford in the preliminary opening round, playing Westmeath twice, then beating Wicklow before accounting for Louth.

It is felt that a one month's suspension will be imposed on Fay, not having been previously booked in the game. If this proves to be the case the Trim player would be eligible for the All-Ireland semi-final, should Meath get that far, against Mayo on August 31.

Full forward Brendan Reilly is expected to be available for the Leinster final however, despite being stretchered off 16 minutes into last Sunday's game. Reilly was knocked unconscious but Leinster Council secretary Michael Delaney said there was no mandatory obligation on a player to take a break following this type of injury. "No such rule exists in Gaelic football," he said. Meanwhile, Mickey Moran is staying on as Sligo manager to build on the promise shown by his young team in last Sunday's Connacht final. Moran has called a meeting with selectors this week and will outline future plans. His immediate target now is to win promotion out of division four.

Following their one-point defeat by Mayo, Moran is more convinced than ever that there is a Connacht title in this team, perhaps within the next three years. "We got down two-thirds of the pitch on Sunday andthen seemed to run into a stone wall," he said.

Moran believes that Mayo will be strong challengers against Meath or Offaly in the All-Ireland semi-final. By that stage they will be strengthened by the return to action of Kevin Cahill and Colm McManamon.

The Clare hurling squad trained at Croke Park yesterday in preparation for Sunday's All-Ireland semi-final clash with Kilkenny, who have slight injury worries about Michael Phelan and substitute Ken O'Shea.