THERE'S NO nice way of saying this, but neither Brian Cody nor Joe Dooley was being totally honest with us in the aftermath of this latest Leinster hurling fiasco.

Cody has now made an art form out of playing down his team's performance, so that even if they win by 18 points, as they did here, much if not all of the praise goes to the opposition.

"I'd be very happy," he started, "but I thought the first half was a fiercely competitive game. We got a nice start. Offaly came back really strongly. There was great commitment on both sides. Great skill, and great tackling all over the field.

"Obviously, a goal was going to be a big score. And that was the vital goal for us, right on the stroke of half-time. It was a big lift to us, and I suppose a bit of a downer for them.

"Again, I thought Offaly were brilliant, when they were going good. I thought it was a great championship first half. Real genuine. Great pace, and great scores being taken."

Apparently, Cody didn't like our match previews, which, of course, predicted a Kilkenny win. But what else were we to say?

"Well you get on with it," he said, "and treat it with the stupidity it deserves to be treated with. Again, last year this game was a huge battle for us. We had to be flat out to get into the situation where we could drive on.

"And this year was the same. You can say what you like beforehand, but if we were going out in any way off the mark, we would have been blown away by half-time. And that's the reality. As a team, we had to go flat out the whole match.

"Maybe, the last 10 or 15 minutes the game was over. But it was about 15 players, and whatever players we brought on."

At least he was honest about one thing: Henry Shefflin was back to his awesome best.

"Henry has worked himself to a standstill to make this game. This was the game in his head, to be back for. It's great to see him out there, and he's so serious for us."

Down the corridor, Dooley was careful not to criticise his team

in any way, as if aware their confidence was fragile enough, and if he can't keep it together, what chance have they got? If he was honest about it, Offaly were very poor in the second half.

"I thought for the first 35 minutes we hurled very well," he said. "It was inspiring kind of stuff. But it's very, very hard to keep Kilkenny down. They're a great hurling team, and after they got the goal, we were struggling. It was we needed that goal, not Kilkenny.

"But I thought we played very well for the first half. Up front we were struggling, but the Kilkenny backs were very strong as well. They're going to take some beating. It takes an unbelievable effort to stay with Kilkenny for 70 minutes. It takes huge talent, and fitness, and strength.

"I thought our lads gave everything that was asked of them. I'm proud of them. But to keep that up for 70 minutes against a team like Kilkenny takes some effort, and there aren't too many teams that can. They're going to be turned over some day. You just have to keep at it."

Dooley, too, was at least honest about one thing - he always felt Offaly were headed for the qualifiers: "Deep down, we probably knew we were going to be in the qualifiers, so we'll see how far we can get there.

"It's 10 years since our last All-Ireland; sure I suppose we're a long way off it. We'll try to fill our positions one by one. We had two or three guys under 22 there. If we get critical, and they all walk away, we have no chance. We have to be positive and try to keep it going."