All year long, Kilkenny have yearned and dreamt and laboured for this, for another shot, to just get back into an All-Ireland final. And yesterday, half surprised that the route had proven so straightforward, they found themselves there. It's both a dream and a plank walk.

Offaly blindsided them two years ago and they have been stricken by a September malaise ever since. That they have had the gumption to come back for another crack is testimony to their character. But how perilous the task ahead!

And that it is Offaly - you imagine them puffing on tobacco and dozing in some sun-trap - awaiting them gives the thing a neat little circular conclusion. John Power was in the stands for 1998 but he remembers the hurt well enough. Could phantom pain resurrect itself now?

"Ah, I dunno. Sure we didn't treat Galway as Galway out there, only as 15 shirts stopping us getting to an All-Ireland final. And now we have another 15 shirts to face and we don't really care whose wearing them, only that they don't stop us bringing home what we want to bring home. So, like, I don't think we'll get really hung (up) over who it is," he says.

The centre forward had another superbly industrious hour battling wherever the action was molten, in the thick of some particularly earnest exchanges early on. "I thought it was very harsh to have a yellow card shoved in my face after six minutes of hurling. I didn't hurt anyone or swing at anyone to deserve that and to have to hurl on a yellow card for most of 70 minutes . . .

"And then to turn around and give a free after a perfect pull to get in behind Cathal Moore - don't tell me that was a dirty pull or that it was from behind. You can't pull from behind when you are in front of a man - unless we have magic wands out there."

Of course, one of his team-mates seems to come equipped with a wand that is made of more than just ash. DJ Carey seems to reserve the rarer depths of his reflex for Galway teams and again yesterday he undid them with one flourish of his rapier.

"Ah sure he is such a special talent that he is capable of getting a goal like that in every match," sighed Willie O'Connor. The Glenmore man, venerable and craggy and quick-humoured as ever, has seen enough of these days to read the thing better than anyone. He reckoned the Galway men were dry on luck yesterday.

"They hit the post and then James (goalkeeper James McGarry) made a great save. That's six points right there. And then our goal at the start of the half, it was the ignition. We took the chances and that was the difference."

Across the corridor, Galway manager Mattie Murphy found himself piecing together a calamitous second half. Wanted maybe an hour of solitude but instead found himself fielding a barrage of questions.

"Well, it went wrong it a few places for us I suppose. I'm sure you pundits will tell me. I was watching it in the heat of battle."

After the first 30 minutes, they could not have predicted that they'd find themselves so swamped for the remainder of the game. And still there were instances that might have set in motion a revival.

Murphy entertains them only briefly.

"Eugene (Cloonan) got very little out there today in terms of three or four dodgy decisions against him. Don't know what the stats are but I think he was one of our better performers. We had a few goal chances today - it was hard luck for Eugene, he topped the ball when 99 times out of 100 he'd have scored. And Kevin (substitute Kevin Broderick) had a chance. But we didn't deserve anything out there."

So another year without fulfilment out west. Will this team ride again?

"Well, Kilkenny came back after being beaten in two All-Ireland finals," reasoned Murphy.

"How hard can it be, like?"