GAA: This Sunday in Thurles, Birr will contest the club's fourth All-Ireland club final. The event has plenty of symmetry for the Offaly champions, who lost the first of those finals in Thurles. Seán Morantalks to Joe Errity
It's 10 years since then, and four of the players survive from that defeat by Kiltormer. One is Joe Errity, who captained Birr to the club's most recent title four years ago.
Although both of Birr's All-Irelands have been won at Croke Park, and opponents Clarinbridge played an impressive semi-final against Munster champions Ballygunner in Thurles, Errity has no inhibitions about the venue.
"We've all played there a few times, even if Clarinbridge have been there more recently. Thurles has a good atmosphere and the crowd will look better than in Croke Park, where it can look lost. It's a wide pitch and they used it to their advantage against Ballygunner."
Semple Stadium, for all its familiarity, has unhappy memories for Errity. In the semi-final against Clarecastle just over four years ago, his father, Tommy, passed away during the match.
"Yeah, you try and put that to the back of your mind," he says, "but it will probably be in my thoughts alright."
Birr have been a model of team-building over the past 10 years with incremental changes between each of the final appearances. Little by little players have retired and been replaced, so that there has been nearly a complete turnover in personnel.
But replacing the final four won't be easy. Errity, the Pilkington brothers, Johnny and Declan, and the immense Brian Whelahan remain a major influence on the team.
The development of new talent has had an influence not only on the rebuilding of the team but on the club's success over the years, according to Errity.
"We're lucky that we've had a good panel. You were never just looking at a bare team of 15. That's helped a lot with our success."
On Sunday, for the third time in their four final appearances, Birr face Galway opposition and have reason to be wary. Five times the club has won the Leinster title, and on the only two occasions that they have been beaten at All-Ireland level, it has happened against Galway opposition at Thurles.
Ten years ago, you could feel sorry for the Offaly champions as they were forcibly sidelined while Kiltormer and Cashel King Cormacs fought out an enthralling three-match semi-final epic. The decisive encounter took place on St Patrick's Day in Croke Park together with the football final. Twelve days later, Kiltormer defeated Birr in Semple Stadium.
In 2000, Birr clashed with the club that rivals their success in recent championships, Athenry of Galway, and again lost - this time narrowly after a keenly balanced semi-final. In between those years, an ageing Sarsfields side was well beaten in the 1998 final.
Clarinbridge are a new challenge. A nimble team of hurlers, they will be as capable of working the ball around the wide spaces of Thurles as Birr. Driven by a desire to refute suggestions that their win over Athenry in the Galway final was some sort of act of God, Clarinbridge impressed in their semi-final win over Ballygunner.
Birr, though, have stuttered through the campaign and were nearly caught by Castletown in the Leinster final before comfortably winning the replay. Reservations abound that Birr aren't what they were and that the previously impregnable half-back line isn't the bulwark it once was. Errity doesn't argue that the defence in general has been off form.
"I'd agree we haven't looked as settled in our games so far. But we are working hard to rectify that. Our performances have been up and down. Even within the county we struggled to get out. Maybe 'sluggish' isn't the right word, but we weren't that happy with performances in Leinster."
His decorated career is moving to a close, yet an All-Ireland final suspends that sort of reflection. "I'm happy to have got to this stage and it's not really the week to be thinking about retirement."
He has enough medals not to be counting."I suppose I accumulate them and then think about training for the next."
