In the Offaly dressingroom there is the kind of peace which comes with endings. The longest season, eight games and endless turmoil, has ended the way it was supposed to, with Offaly finding their groove and filching an All-Ireland which more intense but less talented collectives have earnestly coveted.

Fitting that Johnny Pilkington should have found his best form on the biggest day. His final performance makes a match with his All-Ireland club final showing. Big days bring the best out of him. He draws the good stuff out of a cigarette and considers his input.

"It was only small little things, nothing spectacular about it. Today was a 15-man game. I just did the things I'm supposed to do."

You won't get anything approaching hubris out of the fella, so the conversation turns to Michael Bond. Johnny has a bit of history with managers. He turns up a cheery grin.

"Michael did well, but I don't know how long his managerial career will last. Depends. Whether I'll ratify him after today or not. I just don't know."

The flow of wit and wisdom is interrupted by the arrival of the delegation from Kilkenny. They come as emissaries from the dressing-room of the proud losers. They receive hushed silence.

"Can't hate ye for it, I just have to admire ye," says Kevin Fennelly in a speech which is surprisingly full of emotion and intensity.

Stephen Byrne, the rookie goalkeeper who surely wrapped up an All Star with some of his saves on the big days, is leaning with his back to the wall when Fennelly finishes. He looks not quite tuned into it all.

"The first half there, it was real fits and starts, typical Offaly hurling. We decided it at half time. We said we only had 35 minutes, we better produce the goods. Everyone said a bit at half time. That's the way it works, just to get the team going."

For a man leaving his first footprints in the big time, Byrne has had a wondrous season. No part of his game yesterday betrayed the nerves which would have been excusable.

"I think the pressure of the three Clare games set us up for the All-Ireland. I personally didn't feel too much pressure today. We went through three Clare games and everything went well. Once you get out there and get stuck in, you shake off the nerves."

In another corner Joe Errity sits serenely. He was first into the dressing-room, clattering up the concrete stairs to the players' precincts with his arms raised above his head.

It was a deeply personal moment of triumph. Joe's father, Tommy, passed away in Semple Stadium, Thurles, on the day Joe played at full back in the All-Ireland club replay against Clarecastle last February. Joe's season was later threatened by injury.

"It's a great day for the family. A proud day for us all. There was a danger I wouldn't make it this summer. I've always had injury troubles. After the last operation I had fierce problems. Had an operation before the Wexford game, a bit of cartilage trouble. Quite bad. I was back for the Kilkenny game and should have been going on from there but I wasn't. It was touch and go for a while. It's great to be involved after all the troubles."

It was an afternoon which had its high point when Errity stuck the ball to Brian Whelahan who pulled to the net, adding to Errity's earlier goal and finishing the game for all intents and purposes. Joe Errity couldn't begin to count the number of matches he has played with Brian Whelahan since childhood.

"I've always said about growing up with the fellas from Birr it always makes it special, but in Offaly it's tooth and nail for each other, nobody knocking us off our pedestal. We do that for each other."

And of his own effort? What traces in the memory?

"Well, the ball broke and I picked up, went for the goal, wasn't going to get the strike for the point. I was falling and I hit it and I didn't really know where it was going either, just the general direction. Went right into the corner. After that we just piled on the pressure. We didn't let them back into the game. We didn't sit back at that stage."

He finishes up talking of the camaraderie in the team, the feeling between the boys who were out there. Something forged in bad times.

"What a year."

And we leave him to ponder the best and worst of it in peace.