Leinster SF/Offaly v Westmeath: This is the easy time. This week's work took Offaly's Colm Quinn through the midlands and Connacht and it was warm enough to drive with the sunroof open and just the weather alone put people in a good mood.

Around Offaly, it was easy to sense that it was a championship, that Croke Park beckoned. With the heavy hours of training down and the modest but significant achievement of a Division Two league title behind them, it finally feels like game day has arrived for Offaly.

Back to the big noise on the Jones' Road, scene of so many famous Offaly raids. Westmeath and Páidí Ó Sé are a high-octane combination and even though Quinn - amusedly - considers himself a senior member of the scene now the prospect of it animates him.

"Yeah, the whole double bill thing as well gives it an extra dimension, I imagine there will be a fairly good crowd there. And playing in Croke Park on championship days always gives you this feeling. Like, we were there not so long ago for the Division Two final but I don't know. We won the game but it was a poor enough oul standard and I don't think any of us were over excited. The fact that it was a poor game took the gloss of it. And we were probably conscious of coming back here a few weeks later for Westmeath."

When Quinn looks back to his debut season of 1996, he finds it hard to legislate for the eight years that have elapsed. The best way he can account for them is through distinct games: the Leinster final of 1997, the annihilation by Meath a year later, the dumping of Meath when they were All-Ireland champions in June of 2000 and so on.

What it all comes down to is the fact that this has been an uneven run for Quinn and the other survivors of the side that shot to prominence under Tom Lyons seven summers ago. Offaly have been consistently respected since then and theoretically strong and fit and organised enough to present a threat to the strongest teams in the country.

They have their irrepressible all-rounder in Ciarán McManus, they have seven or eight players with Leinster and league medals and they have All-Ireland pedigree recent enough for the players to remember, albeit dimly.

Even last summer, they had Mick O'Dwyer's Laois on the rack going into the last five minutes of their first round Leinster championship game. And yet Laois went on to claim a famous provincial title and a heap of All-Star awards and Offaly just kind of faded from the championship.

"It was a typical kind of scenario," reckons Quinn.

"There was very little between the teams. The one crucial difference was that Laois had been in a division one league final and we had been tipping away in division two. We had a few good results and then lost to Leitrim and drew somewhere else and that was the promotion aim gone.

"So we had this inconsistency thing hanging over us whereas Laois were playing well and steadily. So in that game, they just kept trying to do the right thing with patience and belief and the goal came in the last minute.

"I can still see it in slow motion, the ball coming in high towards the square and the full forward rising to contest it. Then it was in Mick Lawlor's hands and it seemed to take forever to leave his boot. But I knew before he even kicked it. It is like a punch. Then the noise comes and you can't believe it.

"We were shocked but straight away comes the realisation that you have to keep it together or else you could be gone altogether."

Playing in one of the most engrossing ties of the championship was scant consolation to Offaly and after the controversial axing of manager Paul O'Kelly, the players could have been forgiven for beginning the season at a new ebb.

This season more than most, Quinn felt he dreaded the slow and horrid early sessions of training. When Gerry Fahy brought them together, it was decided that they should train as a team on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights.

"I remember someone just saying, "well, there goes Coronation Street for another year," Quinn laughs. "And that is the way you think in the beginning. You rule a lot of stuff out.

"And if you are honest with yourself, you probably go to the gym on a Tuesday and Thursday evening because it you don't have the weights work done now, you get found out. But once we got into it, training together was hugely enjoyable."

Fahy also brought them away for the now obligatory foreign training schedule. They went to Spain but saw nary a pitcher of sangria or a sunbed for the full week. Maybe it was an Offaly thing but they managed to avoid the sun altogether.

"It just lashed the entire week. It was like the wettest feckin night in Tullamore you ever saw. And we were out in it three nights a week. So we just decided to hell with it, we are here so we may as well go for it. And it was valuable because you got to spend that block of time with lads you play alongside. At home, it is so busy that training is just part of a packed day. At least this way we got to chat properly with the younger lads like Niall McNamee and James Coughlan."

In their minds, Offaly are a Division One team again and that is important because it feels like they have got the scent of consistency again. Quinn was just 20 when his football life seemed to snowball as Tom Lyons cast his spell and even though it winning seemed as natural as breathing then, he came to realise just how delicate a form it is to maintain.

They have been chasing it since; it is one of the reasons he would ring his friend McManus when he was working in Finland or Japan and talk football for an hour and why McManus would appear at training every weekend, knackered from hauling himself through European airports.

Quinn's work involves driving and that too can be draining and severe on the hamstrings. "At some point in the season, you do get a bit tired of the routine of it all. But at the core of it, there is an enjoyment. Like, you never resent it and you can't afford to because that would soon become apparent on the field. Ciarán's enthusiasm for Offaly is the same as the first day he arrived and that is kind of inspirational. And when you get into the swing of it and have the sense that the squad is coming together."

On Gerry Fahy's backroom team is Matt Connor. Quinn was six in 1982 when Connor and Offaly won the All-Ireland and watched the game in his grandmother's house while his parents travelled up to the game.

"I was very young but event then I understood what Matt meant to Offaly football. Now, he is like an encyclopaedia when it comes to football. He wouldn't talk much in the dressing room but when you get him alone, it's unreal. He is always passing on tips and just having a man of his distinction around us reminds us of what this is about."

Offaly's great strength is also their most infuriating trait. With Offaly, you can never be sure. Tomorrow, they meet a Westmeath team for whom the carnival music has begun to sound strained. It is a desperately important game for both counties.

"Absolutely," says Quinn. "It is the one we have been building towards and we believe that we have a squad capable of going on and achieving something but it all starts here."