National Football League finals seldom live long in the memory. Yesterday's affair at Croke Park struggled for distinction and got little help from the elements.

When we survey Offaly's victory and Derry's defeat from the vantage point of time our perspective will focus on what happened to them afterwards. Yet there were moments yesterday which were worth preserving.

No doubt about it, Offaly football is enjoying a spectacular upswing. Tommy Lyons, the benign-humoured missionary who went into a county riven by arguments and apathy, has done the good work. His team aren't just winning things, they are restoring people to the broader faith of football. The most enjoyable footballing performance of the last couple of years was Offaly's fluid defeat of Meath in the Leinster final last year.

In the aftermath those of us whose disposition leaves us with little faith rationalised the wonders we had seen by pointing out that Meath had half a defence in the convalescent home. Offaly were lively middleweights fighting above their grade and someday soon somebody would land them on the canvas.

Looks unlikely. Yesterday's league final was no classic of the genre but at times in a first half which was threatened with being swept away by the rain, Offaly played some scintillating football. They led by four points at half-time and would only have been slightly flattered had the margin been double that. They had after all missed a 21st-minute penalty and hit five wides.

In the second half it looked briefly as if their more experienced northern rivals would grind them down and blow them away but they defended in numbers and with some wisdom and clipped on a couple of key points when Derry had at last got back to level terms. Thus Offaly found themselves celebrating their first league win and promising to forget all about it in the morning. Offaly's championship rematch with Meath is just four weeks away and after yesterday's game it was impossible not to recall the scenes in the Meath dressing-room in July of 1991 when, having defeated Dublin in a four-match epic which defined the summer, the victors slapped backs deliriously and announced with great cackles of derision that the league champions were gone.

By means of a focusing exercise, Tommy Lyons was last night promising three weeks of savage work to his players. "Today will only have made Meath want to beat us more," he said. For the next while Offaly will be too tired to reflect on the league final.

For Derry after three league wins this decade, yesterday's loss was less than a trauma, more of an irritation. If there is an alarm bell ringing somewhere in the camp it might concern the fact that Derry no longer nail teams down like they used to in their pomp.

Yesterday's game followed a similar pattern to the 1993 All-Ireland semi-final when Derry spent the second half concentrating fiercely until Johnny McGurk scored a winning point which had looked inevitable for some time.

Yesterday Derry pulled themselves back to level terms and then surprisingly conceded the last two scores of the game. They spoke in bemused terms about some refereeing decisions and it is true that their full-forward line got little change out of the man in the middle but their overall performance lacked the bite of old.

"We have more homework to do," said Lyons afterwards as his team digested this small slice of history. "This means nothing till the 24th of May. It will be something for the lads to look back on in time. In 10 years time they will be the first team to have won a National League for Offaly. But come the 24th of May it will just increase Meath's will to beat us."

So, same as it ever was. League subservient to championship but a worthwhile appetiser nonetheless.