The two brightest patches on hurling's quilt have had strange summers. Brian Whelahan hits Croke Park tomorrow after an epic year which brought a club championship and seven championship games to date. DJ Carey arrives via the short cut. Just as well, probably, for a man whose biggest news splash of the year was his retirement.

The pair of them have been talismans for their teams for most of the decade, the touchstones of hope. If either of them are playing well the cause is never lost.

DJ Carey and Brian Whelahan have a relationship of sorts; they've played on pitches against each other since childhood, each circling the other's growing legend. Whelahan sandwiched his two minor All-Irelands around Carey's one, but they announced themselves as stars of the future at the same time, clashing repeatedly at schools, minor and under-21 level. To meet in an All-Ireland senior final is a strange twist of hurling rules, a weird jag of fate.

Their mindsets in the morning would make interesting comparative case studies. Whelahan, despite being amused at "getting thrown out of the forwards" when Alan Markham's prowess and Offaly's need were most evident in the middle game of the Clare series, has enjoyed another year of customary brilliance.

"Brian Whelahan is the heart and soul of this team," says Michael Bond, "and his performances for us when the going has got tough have illustrated that."

In Kilkenny, the collective hope is that DJ Carey will give them one good day. In the big picture, it's not as if he owes them a big day, but his short-term account certainly shows a deficit, and those with poor attention spans have been grumbling (unfairly) that he might as well have stayed in retirement for all the difference he has made this summer.

Carey is prickly on the subject of his sudden sabbatical. More precisely, he is diffident about the reasons for his comeback. The retirement, with an expanding business and a family to take care of, was an understandable and surely an unhurried decision. Getting hustled back into the game so quickly must have left him with mixed feelings.

"I did it," he says. "I came back, I gave my press conference. I remember flying back from America wondering what I was going to tell ye guys at the press conference. But I did it. I came back. That's it."

Of course that's never it. All the distractions and ennui which led him towards retirement in the first place didn't happily vanish when he was persuaded back into the jersey. Was he led back by the ear? He is inclined to grumble a little about these questions, which rain down on him still. "I saw in the paper today a phantom man being quoted," he says, "a senior official in Kilkenny saying that this year the commitment hasn't been there from me. I've asked all the senior officials in Kilkenny and they all deny it. Whoever he is, he hasn't been down here in Nowlan Park for the last three months."

Carey is right, but in Kilkenny they suspect maybe he is right only in the technical sense. He has been stamping the clock and doing the laps, but his head isn't consumed by hurling perhaps.

Even still, they hope the rainmaker might give them one more day and they give thanks that, in a year when so many of their team have shut their mouths and shut the shop as far as media and public relations is concerned, DJ is carrying the load.

In Offaly, DJ's old rival Brian Whelahan is having one of those epic, rollercoaster years which he will savour better from the vantage point of retirement. Birr and Offaly have been going at it seemingly forever, big match falling on top of big match, until now Whelahan and a handful of colleagues stand on the brink of the club and county AllIreland double - if fatigue doesn't wipe them out first.

"Our hurling in Offaly was poor early on this year," he says in his understated way, "but it has got better even though we are feeling the effects of the three games now. Could have done with a week to get the old tiredness out of the limbs. If we don't perform against the best unit in the game, I'll have to say, if we battle as hard as we can, if we are not on our game they'll run up the scores."

As he has aged, Whelahan's influence on the team has developed too, and many of his colleagues cite him as a walking antidote to the motivational malaise which has stricken the most talented team in the country down through the years. When he speaks, his quiet tones can't disguise the constant need to analyse his team's progress and performance.

"We weren't too happy against Wexford, or against Clare the second day, but our hurling has improved as the campaign went on. Michael has been a big factor, in that he got us back to hurling the way we were in Eamon Cregan's time. We're playing Offaly's game, moving the ball quicker, mixing in a little ground hurling. That is a big factor.

"We're not as bad as we looked to be in the Leinster final, but we weren't comfortable with the game we were playing."

Ah, the Leinster final, that illstarred exhibition of dreariness. Even among the winners it is hardly remembered with fondness. In Offaly, it's awfulness is nothing but a motivational tool at this stage.

"We were looking forward to a Leinster final. We didn't hurl well. We just weren't let hurl well," Whelahan says. "Afterwards Babs distanced himself from it, and we know what happened. Myself, I played on John Dooley, and then Andy Comerford came in. Andy has been on the team ever since so you can draw your own conclusions."

The strange thing about Carey and Whelahan is that they have been with us so long that, almost subconsciously, when they speak about the future they seem to be withdrawing themselves from it. They should have another half decade each at least left in the tank, but the wear and tear which the modern game inflicts might steal their twilight.

"This team is young yet and they can go on to win again," says DJ.

"Kilkenny have won the last nine minors in Leinster," says Whelahan. "We have four from the '89 minor team left, the most we ever got out of a minor was 1986 and most of them are gone. In Offaly, we need them. You are talking about eight senior clubs you are really picking from. We have players coming through, but I won't be round to see them."

Maybe this is the last All-Ireland for the pair of them. They have been tangling on big stages for a decade now, each rifling through the other's pockets on occasion. They'll acknowledge each other's greatness with no more than a handshake tomorrow and then get on with it, perhaps the only players on the field capable of lifting the entire game by the scruff of the neck and bringing it to another level entirely.

They both deserve to find their best.