CHAMPIONSHIP 2002: You'll never find Padraic Nolan dancing in the corridors after an Offaly victory. Nor does the manager ever take defeat too seriously. In Tullamore he was at his reserved best; typically honest and accommodating.

"That was very tough," he says, "and typical of Laois-Offaly matches. There was nothing in it, and I'm relieved, to be honest."

Look back at the results of these games over the years and even when Offaly were winning All-Ireland's, they were scraping over Laois.

"Full credit to Laois, too, and they must be wondering what they have to do to beat us. We were a little lucky in the end."

Obviously this wasn't the sort of performance Nolan wanted from his team. Yet he wasn't dwelling on the negatives: "We started poorly, but finished the first half quite well and I was pleased at half-time. We started the second well, too, and got ourselves a bit of a cushion. Then we died out a bit at midfield and they dominated our forwards and we couldn't get the ball up.

"So for the last 10 minutes it was backs-to-the-wall stuff. But Pascal (Kelleghan) was playing well and it was a great score in the end. And it was never going to be anything other than a one or two-point game."

In the end he felt their experience, especially after all the close finishes in the league, saw Offaly through, but he sounded a note of caution: "Well that performance is nowhere near good enough for here on. Kildare came through today and are still a serious team, so we'll have to up that performance a long way."

In the other dressing-room Laois manager Colm Browne is similarly downbeat, trying to come to terms with another defeat at the hands of the old neighbours.

"Well I suppose we only scored 2-6, which is just eight scores. But you couldn't say we were outplayed in terms of possession. But we just didn't play directly enough when we had the upper hand, in terms of possession.

Browne now faces the difficult challenge of trying to lift his team for the qualifiers: "Obviously it's not going to be easy. Our aim was to go straight through. But we'll just have to get on with it and I suppose the first game in the qualifiers will tell the story. We have a big job to get ourselves right for that. But if we do get it right, and get a win under our belts, and perform the way we can perform, then who knows."