LockerRoom: With 20 minutes to go before throw-in yesterday it seemed as if the rumours about Wexford's appetite for this game had been supersized with exaggeration. Perhaps beating Kilkenny had left yellow bellies pleasantly full. Perhaps they didn't need to bear witness at another soggy Leinster final, writes Tom Humphries.

As the rain cleared, though, and the skies provided a dash of light so the seats filled with disciples of the purple and gold. Funny thing. As the attendance swelled so did the suspicion that this was a coronation Offaly would enjoy crashing.

It wasn't to be but you could imagine them, these Offaly boys, cool and chilled, in their cave below the Hogan Stand wondering which version of themselves the afternoon would draw out. Then as they hit the tunnel and moved towards the light the great oceanic roar of Wexford voices would roll over them. Ah!

What must Mike McNamara make of Offaly ways and laws? In the old days with Loughnane and Considine he was one of those whose fingers were allowed linger on the highly calibrated controls of the Clare psyche. For big games the boys would wind Clare up steadily, pushing them all the way, knowing there were only so many times in the year when the apparatus would work reliably.

In Offaly there is no blinking console, no instruction booklet. They do it when they feel like it thanks, and when they feel like it they do it wonderfully. They didn't feel like it for Babs. They felt like it for Michael Bond. They've taken their time deciding about Mike McNamara but the hill behind the Lohans' house in Shannon where Clare crucified themselves every winter has no equivalent yet in Offaly lore. Mike Mac knows there are horses for courses and there are courses for horses.

What's charming about Offaly is the fact that they are a nouveau riche county who play like blue bloods. The county pulled itself up by the bootstraps, breaking through with a team that worked harder than coalminers, but they seem to have made the sacrifice on the understanding that they were liberating subsequent generations to play with panache and style.

And what's charming about Wexford is their unassuming style. If you were to put together a hurling snuff movie which would be a compilation of bad and grisly deaths, Wexford would feature in many of the most disturbing scenes. Yet they keep putting one foot in front of the other and battling on. Wins are a hooley. Losses are a shrug.

Yesterday they stitched a 20th Leinster title into their c.v., deservedly becoming the county who liberated Leinster from a run of Kilkenny victories that looked like rolling on through all eternity.

Offaly might have had three goals before Mick Jacob scored one for Wexford halfway through the first act. That Offaly weren't winning by a streak at that stage was mainly due to Damien Fitzhenry, to whom Wexford owe a debt of Third World proportions.

They used to say of Skinny Meara from Tipp that he could stop a swallow flying through a barn door. Fitzhenry makes swallows give up wanting to fly through barn doors.

As Mike Mac said of Fitzhenry afterwards, when you go in against him you go in against the best. Mike Mac also made due and warm reference to Brian Mullins, his own outstanding keeper, but on the day it was Fitzhenry whose genius divided the teams.

As a goalie he has a computer for a brain. When he should be found standing he is standing, as when Brendan Murphy kicked at goal after 15 minutes. When he needs to be airborne he is up and away, as when Damien Murray thumped a shot at the Wexford goal after just five minutes. And when the occasion calls for cool, well he's like the song says, colder than a well-digger's ass. His penalty save on the half hour yesterday must have been the final straw for Offaly. No more flying at barn doors.

It's hard to overstate the quality of Conran's work. Last summer when Wexford squeezed that Rory McCarthy equaliser out of Cork we assumed that this would be the high point of their achievements for a few years to come. Subtract Dave Guiney, Liam Dunne, Darren Stamp, Larry O'Gorman and Larry Murphy from that team. Give Paul Codd an injury. Throw in a winter of such apparent discontent that it seemed Wexford would struggle to field a side for a sevens tournament. You're left with a prospect only a fool would bet on.

Conran's Wexford didn't play what Conran himself calls sweet, nice hurling yesterday. Hopefully they never planned to. Offaly like nothing better than teams with those sort of pretensions. Their armoury is filled with dinky ground strokes, little flicks and touches, nifty hooks and heartbreaking blocks. Getting past Offaly isn't usually done with grace. It's a struggle.

It's a struggle but Wexford learned to cope. They hurled first time when they could but still managed to cut through the Offaly defence a few times using the speed of their forwards and their distinctive handpasses.

For Wexford to step up yesterday they needed to engineer things to suit themselves. They did so in textbook fashion. One point down at half time, they came out and took the first three scores of the second half. The third of those was the most significant. By then they needed something to ignite their own people.

Two things came - no, three. Darragh Ryan burst out of the square, ball in hand, and thumped the sliotar well into Offaly territory. As a full back he is as talismanic as Brian Lohan. A roar went up.

Not long afterwards that was superseded by a lustier cheer. Paul Codd, new into the game, got free of Colm Cassidy and scored a point. By the time that score sailed over the bar Brian Whelahan was sitting on the Offaly bench icing a treacherous hamstring.

Offaly were reshuffling but losing Whelahan was like closing a valve in the heart.

The current of the game carried Wexford along after that. A few minutes later they were in clear water. Paul Carley scooted away and with two Offaly defenders converging murderously he planted a geometrically perfect shot in at the far post.

For emphasis Adrian Fenlon stuck a point over seconds later. The white flag was like a mocking exclamation mark.

Young John O'Connor could start thinking about his speech and in the press box we could start wondering if we weren't imagining that it was only last week that the fathers of the Jacobs and of Eoin Quigley were playing in Wexford jerseys on this field.

We left, nigh on 50,000 of us, in better spirits than the weather (and the defeat of the Dublin minors) should have allowed. Wexford going well bring a lift to any summer. Offaly, their mood undivinable from one game to the next, have Clare to face.

Into July and the championship is roaring and we've hardly evicted a big-name county yet. Just burning down the barn to get the mice out, as baseball people say.

There's great days coming to us still.