Gay O'Driscoll isn't particularly unhappy about his place in history passing to a new generation. A member of the previous Dublin team to win the Walsh Cup he saw the distinction pass at the weekend.

"About time," is his reaction. "It was a fantastic achievement but looking at it realistically there's still a lot to do. I wouldn't be pouring cold water on it because it was a strong Kilkenny team who came back at them a few times but it will be really important to keep the momentum going in the league match against Galway in a couple of weeks."

At the time of his Walsh Cup victory he had other things on his mind.

"My memory of 1967 is mainly I went on to captain the under-21s in an All-Ireland final and that would have been the main concentration."

At the time Dublin hurling was only a few years after losing the 1961 senior All-Ireland final to Tipperary by a point in a match hurling people in the city reckon could so easily have turned the county's fortunes. Even the years that followed had their promise. In 1965 Dublin won the All-Ireland minor title for the last time and O'Driscoll's team lost the under-21 All-Ireland, again to Tipperary and again by a point.

"We had a good team and all we needed was a break, which never arrived. We just weren't able to break through. Hurling went down afterwards and football wasn't going well either. When I decided to give up hurling in 1973, it wasn't a major decision and it could just as easily have been football."

Anyway he plumped for football and a year later won an All-Ireland and embarked on a sequence of six successive finals and two more medals. The Walsh Cup win had featured, like this year, a win over Kilkenny and the defeat after a replay of Offaly. In the summer Kilkenny reversed that result and went on to win the All-Ireland.

"We were four points up with 15 minutes to go and suddenly Eddie Keher got three or four balls and stuck them in the net. It was gone like that - game over and on the bus."