EVEN the lengthy break between the end of last year's championship and the beginning of the newly structured National Hurling League has not been, apparently, long enough to allow Wexford shake off their All-Ireland hangover. After an uninspired start to the season, the champions find themselves stuck at the wrong end of Division One.

The team has experienced a change of management with one of last year's selectors Rory Kinsella moving into Liam Griffin's shoes. Within the team there is also a change of leadership with Rod Guiney succeeding Martin Stored after Rathnure's counts championship win.

Guiney has been used at centre field, his club position, and acknowledges the team's difficulties. Although comprehensively beaten by Galway on the first day of the season, Wexford's frustration has since come in more agonising doses.

Narrow defeats by Offaly and Limerick teams they overcame on the run to the All-Ireland, were finally followed by their inaugural success, against bottom county Laois but even that wasn't gained without a shock.

"We're struggling to find form It's hard to remember the thousand little things we had to get right last year to perform as well as we did. It's very hard for me to put a finger on any single thing we're not doing right this year.

"Against Limerick, it was in discipline on the backs' part and centre field, giving away too many frees and Limerick punished us. We did enough to win that game and were very very disappointed not to. In the Laois match, imagine five minutes out on field and you're three goals down. Bang, bang, bang, down three. It vas a bit of a flight but the team showed great character coming back in that one.

The first year of the calendar-based season experiment has been blessed with some fine weather in March and April which has brought out the crowds and generated a championship atmosphere at the top matches. Although he appreciates the impact at inter-county level, Guiney has reservations about the impact on clubs' match schedules.

At the beginning of the season, Kinsella went on the record to emphasise that preservation of their Division One status would he Wexford's priority. It sounded no more than the usual mantra albeit slightly more justified at the top of the National League where three teams out of eight are relegated. Part of the argument was that having been promoted last year, the county would find the going more demanding.

"We're slowly getting back" says Guiney. "But everyone is out to beat us just as last year we were out to beat everybody. This year fingers are pointing at us. I think the team can get it right like last year but Division Two games are not as tough. No disrespect to teams in Division Two, but they weren't as tough."

On top of that, players will naturally find the current state of play less exhilarating than the high adrenalin environment to which they became accustomed last summer and autumn. Players who won All-Ireland medals in September spent the rest of the year picking up other accolades before departing on a lavish holiday to California.

"Last September is only a memory. A memory we all cherish but history, gone, finished. Some players are finding it very hard to adjust. There's Larry O'Gorman, player of the year last year after winning an All-Ireland: how does he get back down to it after that?

"In fairness he is trying and everyone is slowly getting back down. But everyone we play is going out thinking: Oh, Martin Storey, he was (players') player of the year, I'll stop him. Everyone with their own little reputations at stake.

"But they're a sensible bunch of lads and no one's going mad after winning the All-Ireland. In the championship, we've Offaly first. We always find it difficult to beat them. Look at the performance we had to put in last year to beat them. Kilkenny, D J, you know they're an obstacle. No disrespect to Laois or Dublin.

Despite the apparently off-hand attitude towards the above Leinster counties. Guiney has reason to be wary of Dublin whose new coach. Michael O'Grady can number Wexford among the many counties where he has performed missionary work.

"Michael O'Grady's a good man. I've a lot of time for him, a lot of Wexford players have. He was with us. Whether Dublin will improve enough, we'll see. We played them in the Walsh Cup final, they were good.

Finally, as an employee of the Bank of Ireland who sponsor the All-Ireland football championship, he casts an appreciative eye over the company's hurling counterparts.

"You take your hat off to Guinness and the outstanding promotion of the game. Now, attendance are up and the overall profile is up. Mind you, it was a bumper year last year, a bumper year the year before. You couldn't ask for a better time to start into sponsoring the championship."