It's been a rocky few months for Offaly football.
Defeat to Wicklow in the first round of the Leinster SFC was followed by the sacking of manager Stephen Wallace, who had been backed by his own players through a statement given to the county board.
Paul Rouse has come in to take the reins with a management team comprising his brother John, Stephen Darby and Alan McNamee.
Rouse has coaxed the likes of Brian Darby, Johnny Moloney and Eoin Rigney back into the fold and is now pouring his energy into lifting morale ahead of the qualifier clash with Antrim at O'Connor Park on Saturday evening.
"If you look at the players who are now on the panel, I think it's very instructive that all the players who were there previously came back in to play for Offaly," he told RTÉ Sport's Marty Morrissey.
"And it's also very instructive that a half a dozen other players joined the panel and expressed a willingness to play for Offaly.
"That says an awful lot and about commitment and about what they want to do. This is the start of a process."
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Long-serving goalkeeper Alan Mulhall began 2018 with high hopes the Faithful County but accepts circumstances have drastically altered their ambitions.
Now, it's all about making a fresh start and giving the support, and the panel, some desperately needed hope.
"It's a clean slate really for everyone. Whatever you've done in the last seven, eight, nine months training, that's gone.
"It's a new management team in and the lads are all Offaly men so they'd have a good knowledge of Offaly football. But everyone has to make their own case again to get on that starting team."
