In the space of three years the world that governs hurling relationships between Clare and Offaly has changed completely. In the 1995 Guinness All-Ireland final, Offaly were the team expected to rule that world while Clare provided the novelty act, a first Munster title in 81 years and a first All-Ireland final since 1932. Offaly didn't play well and Clare took their chance.

The intervening years have seen Offaly slide out of the public estimation that once acclaimed them as three-in-a-row material. Clare worked on their game and their fitness and are two matches away from a third All-Ireland in four years.

Familiarity with Clare's progress has helped make Offaly's story a matter of greater interest. Their incremental decline from All-Ireland champions to a widely despaired-of outfit this season has included a public row in the camp which precipitated the departure of manager Babs Keating after less than a year in charge and the appointment of Michael Bond two weeks before the All-Ireland quarter-final against Antrim.

Their gritty display against Clare in the drawn match came as a surprise and the central question of this afternoon's replay is whether that improvement will be sustained or whether it was a dying kick which caught Clare by surprise.

Eamonn Cregan managed Offaly to the 1994 All-Ireland during a five-year spell from 1992-96. He felt that this year's Leinster final, when they were beaten by Kilkenny, signalled the end of the team.

"Yeah. I did. I felt beforehand that Offaly could beat Kilkenny. I thought they'd got enough enthusiasm and verve. But it was a listless display, like a team on its way out.

"There was something different about them the last day. They rose to the occasion. If you tell anybody `you're no good', they're going to resist it. Again this time they're being told, `Clare were poor and Offaly lost their chance' and Michael Bond will work on that.

" They're one of the best stick teams in the country - their first touch, the flicks, the movement off the ball and the ground hurling. It was a pleasure to watch. They played it simply, moving the ball 30 or 40 yards. Clare couldn't get to it."

Cregan's successor, John McIntyre, believes that Offaly have been underrated this season.

"They're not as bad as some made out. Beating Wexford, who were Leinster champions, running Kilkenny close - not bad for a side supposedly lacking fire and lacking passion. There's been this theory that Leinster hurling is second division compared to Munster. But there's one Leinster team in the final and a fair chance there'll be a second.

"I wasn't one bit surprised by the performance against Clare. The players had to show some pride. They were directly involved in the departure of a manager and the pressure was on. Clare were perfect opponents. At the time (1995), Offaly were partially consoled by losing an All-Ireland final to county that had been down in the doldrums for years. But in retrospect, Offaly feel that they were present at the creation of a monster. So motivation was there."

Neither man is particularly critical of the team in relation to the departure of Babs Keating last month. Cregan experienced difficulties from time to time in his dealings with the players but was surprised with this year's public debate.

"I didn't think it would happen," he says. "I had read the reports about what Babs said after the Leinster final. He should have sorted that out afterwards in the dressingroom. But Babs isn't one to talk behind closed doors."

Cregan's response to the retrospective approval he earned in the midst of the row between Keating and Johnny Pilkington, a player who was critical of him just after he stepped down as manager two years ago but who commended Cregan's approach in comparison to Keating's, is suitably oblique.

"It's like a saying I heard about fine perfume: `smell it but don't swallow it'."

McIntyre agrees that his successor was tactless. "Babs broke the golden rule: don't criticise players in public. You can't. There's so many sacrifices in the modern game. It's professional in all but name. Players don't need the grief, there's more happening in the world."

To a greater extent than Cregan, McIntyre enjoyed a relatively harmonious relationship with the players for the short time he was in charge. "I tried not to be confrontational with them," he says. "But I think a lot of it is a question of giving a dog a bad name. It only takes one or two players to be undisciplined for them all to get a bad name. Some of them didn't even drink at all but the whole panel was demonised because a couple didn't look after themselves off the pitch.

"I started winter training with them last January 12 months in Banagher. I asked a lot of them and I had no problems on that score. I can't understand where the criticism comes from, that they don't make the sacrifices, that they're not professional. I found their attitude topclass and there were only one or two I didn't get fit. If they have a fault, it's a tendency to take their eye off the ball and they're not the easiest to motivate."

Cregan isn't as uncritical of the team he trained.

"Remember the county had reached 10 out of 11 Leinster finals doing things in their own style. They trained hard in '94, not so much in '95 and in '96 some of them trained. It's symptomatic of teams who don't win too many All-Irelands, like Limerick in 1973. Clare on the other hand are willing, or driven, to do it. Offaly weren't willing to do it the second time.

"I've been surprised at their (Offaly's) decline since 1996. There's a lot of players who would give everything and others not as committed as they should be. In Offaly the hurling population is such a small part of the county that everyone has to be willing to commit fully."

Both Cregan and McIntyre believe that Offaly will find the going tougher today but that the team has its strengths.

McIntyre says that the players have now realised that it's up to them. "Michael Bond has made a difference coming in and calming them down but the players had to take responsibility themselves. You must remember that even if they've been described as under-achievers, they've never been far off it: winners in '94, finalists '95, Leinster finalists '96 and semi-finalists last year. "There's been lots of counties like Offaly with gifted underage players who won minor All-Irelands and had similar talent to Offaly and yet never won a senior All-Ireland.

"People say that Clare were lucky, that Offaly lost it at the end. But with eight minutes to go, Offaly were four points down and at a period when Clare usually come strong. You'd have imagined that Clare would have stretched it from four to seven or eight. Offaly did well to recover."