But there was something about them. Offaly minors had run rings around Kilkenny at times in the 1980s with a chunk of Birr men dictating the play. Johnny Pilkington, Daithí Regan and Brian Whelahan were among those that had already settled in with the Offaly seniors. Whelahan was Birr captain at 20 and already cut from a different cloth to everybody else.
Ballyhale knew the game would be difficult but they had Birr’s measure. This was different. Birr hadn’t won a county title in 20 years. Their trainer, Ken Hogan, was still keeping goal with Tipperary. Birr had already lost Regan to suspension and slipped Ray Landy in at full-forward. Among outsiders, nothing was expected of them. In their own minds, everything was.
That afternoon, a great team arrived and helped another depart. Birr skated across the soaking pitch, so nimble they barely lifted a drop of water off the ground. They harried Ballyhale to distraction when they had the ball. When Birr had won it, they didn’t hang on to it long enough for Ballyhale to get near them.
In the second half, they tore Ballyhale apart. Landy ended the game with 2-2. Brian Whelahan and Johnny Pilkington dominated and Birr won by 17 points. At the end, Whelahan was chaired from the field. Birr had arrived.
“I remember Liam Fennelly coming into the dressing room afterwards,” says Daithí Regan, “and saying, ‘If this is the way Offaly hurling is going, we’ve a lot to worry about’. As it transpired we had the indian sign over them. The fear factor wasn’t there. With Birr in Leinster, it was a supreme belief. That was our first occasion in Leinster but guys were coltish. They had no fear.”
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“We had unreal speed all over the park that day,” says Landy. “It was lightning fast. The first touch was unreal. And the way it panned out in the second half, everything we touched went over the bar.”
Birr had reached a peak and would live comfortably at the same altitude for 10 years. When Kilkenny clubs came and tugged at Birr’s tail, their response was always the same. Their belief in themselves was unshakeable, their disregard for reputation was revolutionary. “They beat them in the schools,” says Landy, “they beat them as minors and under-21s. They never feared any Kilkenny team. Brian Whelahan and the lads would always say, ‘They’re only another team.’ Big names meant nothing to Birr.”
They all grew up together and nurtured the same belief as seniors. As the 1990s went on, Birr beat Kilkenny teams every which way they could. In 1997 they fell five points behind Dunnamaggin in the first 15 minutes, trailed them by six at half-time, yet nicked a goal and hit 13 unanswered points in the final quarter to win by 12.
In 1999 they never let Glenmore closer to them than two points. In 2001 Pat Joe Whelahan shuffled his entire team at the start of their game against O’Loughlin Gaels, starting none of the forwards in their appointed positions, and blew them away by seven points. In 2002 they met a Young Irelands team graced by DJ Carey and Charlie Carter in the Leinster final and won by six points.
“We’d have no respect for them all,” says Whelahan. “We didn’t care. We always knew we could beat them, which was the opposite to the way Offaly would be when they play Kilkenny. I played for years against Kilkenny and you could hurl great for 50 minutes and in the last 10 minutes they could slap in two or three goals and beat you. But you won’t learn anything winning. You learn when you’re losing.”
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The years with Offaly allowed him to visualise ways around Kilkenny, if only he could get the right players together. When his own boys started growing up, he saw all the natural elements needed: good hands, sharp first touch, speed, vision and a flinty aggression.
“They (Kilkenny teams) have that short flick. If you have the ball they’ll flick it three or four yards away from you and it’s an effort for you to go back and get it again. That’s something we thought of with the minors, and we did a lot of ground hurling.
“The day we hurled Young Irelands was where the ground hurling really came into play. The ball wasn’t going far but it was going far enough.”
Over the years, Whelahan devised a template to beat them. In 1987 Offaly returned to the Leinster minor championship as defending All-Ireland champions with Whelahan in charge. The team Offaly chose to defend their Leinster title against Kilkenny left Whelahan feeling uncomfortable. When the match was postponed because of the damage done to the pitch by a U2 concert, it bought them time.
Offaly played Galway in a challenge game with the team scheduled to play Kilkenny and lost by 27 points. The following week, Kilkenny played the same Galway team and beat them. Two days before the Leinster final, Whelahan made a call to Galway to test the water.
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“I rang John Fahy, who was over the Galway minors at the time, and I asked him had we a chance. He said, ‘They’ll beat you a point a man.’ I said to John, ‘You go to Croke Park and watch us hurl. There won’t be a ball lifted. It’ll be all ground hurling. We had a few hard sessions, a few hard meetings.”
And they gambled. Brian Whelahan was introduced as a 16-year-old. Offaly moved the ball at speed, trusted their touch and denied Kilkenny time on the ball and the opportunity to disrupt Offaly in possession. Offaly won by seven points. A lifetime of concerns about Kilkenny were obliterated. When they beat Tipperary in the All-Ireland final, seven of the team were from Birr.
Fifteen years later, Whelahan stood outside a Birr dressing room having defeated Young Irelands in the Leinster championship. Kilkenny had brutally reasserted their dominance over Offaly but it was a day when Birr set themselves apart. DJ Carey had been held scoreless. The old dogs had bitten back. A few days earlier, Whelahan had been edged out for the Offaly manager’s job by Mike McNamara. Within the victory was everything that Birr, and Whelahan, prided themselves in.
“There’s only one way you’ll beat Kilkenny: ground hurling and hit them hard,” said Whelahan that evening. “That’s what the county hasn’t been doing. That’s why I’m disgusted with the Offaly County Board and what they’ve done this week. It’s a disgrace. This is probably the greatest club team of all time — even if we don’t win another All-Ireland in Croke Park.
“What did DJ Carey get from play? What did Carter get? A crowd of ordinary hurlers beat them. Am I surprised? No way. We prepared perfect for today. We did our homework and did it well. At the meeting last night, DJ Carey didn’t get a single mention, we weren’t worried about him. We worried about no one from Kilkenny. If you play ground hurling and hit them hard with man-to-man marking, they’re not half as good.”
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The tone of Birr’s games against Kilkenny teams always followed a pleasing trend. While some teams tried to outmuscle them, Kilkenny clubs always tried to out-hurl them. Either way, Birr could find something extra. “They were pure hurling teams,” says Regan. “Even when you’d be beating them well, you never got any dirty strokes. Even when they got some serious trouncings, they always played pure ball.
“We played on some occasions when you knew you’d be in a mother of a game. Castletown (Laois) were always very physical. They tried to knock Birr around, but what people didn’t realise is Birr had a lot of men in their team. If they wanted it tough, we played it tough. Kilkenny teams always gave you an extra spark.”
In 2003 they met O’Loughlin Gaels. The quest for their third successive All-Ireland title had already hit some snags. Barry Whelahan left hospital to play. A raft of intermediate players had been called up to fill out the panel. Five players were ruled out during the week and Birr sought a cancellation of the game.
Even if Birr had fielded their best team, O’Loughlin’s had a dangerous look about them. In the end they won by six points, though Birr were chasing hard as the final tape approached. It was the first time Birr had ever been beaten by a Kilkenny team in championship hurling. As darkness fell on Portlaoise that evening, there was a sense that a curtain was falling, too.
Instead, Birr set to work on an encore. Coolderry slipped one county title in 2004 but Birr have won the past two while slowly recycling the team. Since 2000 Kilkenny have torn Offaly apart in five championship games with the winning margin averaging more than 15 points. When Kilkenny took to battering Offaly, Birr took their temper out on their clubs and gave the county something to hold on to. The county needs something special again today but Birr first have things to prove to themselves.
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“Mentally when you hurl with Birr in the Leinster club championship, you know you’re in a good side with good players,” says Regan. “But some of the Birr guys now playing for Offaly will get their biggest test on Sunday. They have to stand up as supposedly inter-county players do. They’re unproven. They have reputations that are as yet unwarranted. They need to look at their inter-county careers and take days like this very seriously. There’s a massive question there.
“When Brian Whelahan and Joe Errity go, then it is curtains (for Birr). While young guys are coming through, there’s still a huge reliance on the older fellas. I’d have serious question marks over some of the Birr guys. The quality is there. We’ll see if the heart is.”
There has never been any doubt about others. Last month Brian Whelahan matched his father’s record of 10 county medals. Two weeks ago his son Aaron came on in the Leinster semi-final and tapped over a point. Where some people in Birr saw a dead end in 2003, Whelahan only saw another corner to turn. The road continues to stretch out ahead of them.