In 2022, Offaly hurling will mix it with the big boys for the first time in three years.
After years of constant decline with seemingly no floor they couldn't fall below, 2021 was finally the year when they got things rolling in the right direction.
The penalty shootout loss to Down in the 2020 Christy Ring semi-final was a further blow to the solar-plexus, as if they could withstand any more. The national press got another viral story marking the scale of Offaly's decline - not only had they fallen into the third tier of hurling but they couldn't even escape it first time out.
The still-vivid memory of Offaly's golden generations, far from an inspiration, was a millstone hung around their necks, merely adding to the sense of humiliation. Had they been just another standard second/third tier hurling outfit, paddling around the nether-reaches since time immemorial, no one would have paid any attention.
Last summer, their curve ticked upwards for a change. Across Division 2A and the Christy Ring Cup, Michael Fennelly's team won eight games from eight, all by double-digit margins.
In the Christy Ring final in Croke Park last August, they racked up a whopping 0-41 against Derry, Eoghan Cahill running up a personal total of 0-13, while corner-forward Oisín Kelly notched 0-07 from play. The latter, unfortunately, is set to miss this year's league through injury.
And now, in the league at least, they're back among the elite. They replace Westmeath, who, ironically, are playing Liam MacCarthy hurling this year once their Division 2 campaign is out of the way.
It will be a formidable ask of a hurling county still feeling their way back to good-health after a traumatic few years.
Divisions 1A and 1B are no longer streamed on a quality or performance basis, the leagues being randomised at the behest of the 1A managers, who grew disenchanted at the excessive intensity of 1A and wary that certain teams were content to slum it in 1B while preparing themselves for championship (It didn't escape notice that both Galway and Limerick won All-Ireland titles in 2017 and 2018 respectively, having spent spring in 1B).
At the same time, the All-Ireland championship essentially became a league competition of a sort, robbing the actual league of its cache and USP and reducing it further to the status of a warm-up tournament.
Offaly have taken Westmeath's place in the harder of the two divisions, 1A, where they're surrounded entirely by established top-rank teams. There is no fellow yo-yo team present, whom they might feel they could have a cut at.
"The mood in Offaly is realistic," former attacker Brian Carroll tells RTÉ Sport.
"It's a daunting league in terms of teams you're playing. You've got Limerick, Galway, Cork, Clare, Wexford. There's no 1A and 1B as there has been in previous years.
"They're all top tier teams. Not dissimilar to Westmeath last year, it's difficult to pick out a realistic scalp. You'd be hoping we should be competitive."
It's four years since Offaly hurling's fall, long acknowledged as a lamentable fact of life, began to have serious consequences in terms of their fixture programme.
It began with the arrival of the dazzling new championship structure in hurling, which created a definitive trapdoor in Leinster.
In the closing weekends of the inaugural 2018 provincial round-robins, there was a flurry of anxious editorialising on the back of the realisation that Offaly were soon to be relegated.
One sensed moves were afoot to guilt the GAA into preserving Offaly's status in the Liam MacCarthy. How could they finish Offaly hurling like this, after all they achieved in the colour television era? Don't we need all the serious hurling counties we can get? We can't afford to treat the ones we do have so dismissively.
It seemed the ground was being prepared for a hasty tweaking of the rules, allowing for a sixth team in Leinster.
Ger Loughnane, never sparing in his commentary on Offaly (since '98, says you, etc, etc...), slammed the portcullis down on this notion on The Sunday Game.
After their third straight loss, the Clare legend asserted there was a PR drive in train to protect Offaly from the consequences of their results. Not only that but the effort to rescue Offaly from the indignity of the Joe McDonagh was "very insulting" to the teams in the Joe McDonagh, Ger argued.
The Joe McDonagh Cup was Offaly's level, he said flatly. "Is it their level?" Des Cahill asked. "It is, yeah," Ger insisted.
It turned out in 2019 that the Joe McDonagh Cup was a bit above their level. They had further to fall.
Their second tier campaign began with heavy defeats to both Laois and Westmeath. Kevin Martin, whose first game in charge the year before had been a rousing league win over Dublin in Croke Park, was sacked "with immediate effect". Eighties hero Joachim Kelly was parachuted in on a rescue mission. It couldn't be salvaged. They lost narrowly at home to Antrim in Tullamore and then fell to Kerry in their final match in Tralee.
Amid staunch competition, 2019 may well have been the ultimate annus horribilis. Their loss to Carlow in the Division 1 relegation play-off in the spring meant they were taken out of the orbit of the top-tier counties altogether.
How had it come to this? Offaly hurling's golden era ended abruptly when they were pulverised by a ravenous Kilkenny in the 2000 All-Ireland final and it's been a largely grim tale ever since, marked by demoralising defeats and rare, increasingly isolated highs.
Eighties and 90s legend Joe Dooley appeared to rouse something in them in the late noughties - much aided by his son's scoring exploits - and they were respectably competitive for a few years under him and his successor Ollie Baker, mustering championship wins against Limerick in 2008 and Wexford in 2012 and in between taking Galway to the brink in a replay in 2010. That level of performance has been well beyond them for a few years.
Several idle theories were floated for the decline. One school of thought was that the greater mystery with Offaly was not how they became so bad, but how they got so good in the first place.
That, in historical terms, it was the glory years of the 80s and 90s that were the aberration, not the subsequent 20 years. Donal Óg Cusack promoted that theory on League Sunday, while taking a swipe at Offaly pundits in the media - a swipe which was not well received.
Offaly's greatest successes had all occurred under the tutelage of outside managers, the first two All-Irelands being overseen by a Kilkenny man Diarmuid Healy. They turned to a bona-fide Kilkenny legend Michael Fennelly to lead them out of darkness.
Ideally, they would have preferred to emerge from the bowels of the Christy Ring at the first time of asking but at least now, they've built up a head of steam.
Carroll is quick to trumpet the role of trainer Johnny Kelly, the coaching maestro behind the great Portumna side, in the team's improvement in 2021.
"It's very clear that Johnny Kelly is doing a great job training the team. They're all now comfortable with the ball. There's an understanding in Offaly hurling that they're trying to play the right way. We're trying to play hurling in a more modern way, using possession properly and not just leathering the ball downfield.
"There seems to be stability on the field as well, in terms of consistent team selection as well, which has been a big problem in recent years. Now, Oisín Kelly is a big loss to the team but you'd be hoping we'd see the same stability in terms of personnel throughout the league."
In some respects, there was no mystery why Offaly hurling plunged such depths in the second half of the past decade. Anyone who'd paid heed to their efforts at underage couldn't have been too shocked.
Their record at minor grade was none too hot in the 90s, though the senior team continued to prosper off the legacy of the All-Ireland minor teams of the late 80s ('86, '88, '89). They won their last minor Leinster title in 2000, giving eventual All-Ireland champions Galway a decent rattle in the semi-final.
But since the mid-noughties, their record at underage level has been calamitously bad. It's still the case that they haven't beaten Kilkenny, Wexford or Dublin at minor level since 2005. In the 2010s, they became Laois's whipping boys at minor level, losing to their fellow Midlanders in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
In the last couple of years, the sense is they have begun to right things in the youth ranks. In 2019, the U20s registered a landmark win over Dublin in the Leinster championship, their first victory over top-tier opposition in the grade since beating Wexford in 2008. They also reached the 2020 Leinster minor hurling final (played last summer).
This uptick at underage level has coincided with the arrival of Michael Duignan - one of the 'pundits' placed in the dock a few years ago - as county chairman.
"Since Michael Duignan came in as chair, he's lifted spirits," says Carroll. "From every aspect of Offaly GAA, there's been a lift, from football, hurling, underage and the commercial side of things as well.
"And we see there's talent in the county. Look at the U20 footballers winning an All-Ireland last year, playing a lovely brand of football. We made a Leinster minor hurling final last year. Our current minors are a good group of players. They reached the final of Tony Forristal a few years ago. So there are green shoots.
"It seems to be moving in the right direction, but this takes time, we can't expect overnight success."
Carroll isn't inclined to make any bold predictions about Offaly taking down a big fish in 1A. The Coolderry forward says the priority for the campaign will be priming themselves for a tilt at the Joe McDonagh Cup. And if they do get back in the Liam MacCarthy, they might stand a better chance of staying in it than in 2018. There is now room for six teams in Leinster, four years after their panic-stricken advocates began to lobby for it.
"They did what they had to last year," says Carroll. "They took no one for granted. It will be a jump-up in terms of Joe McDonagh as well. They'll be under no illusions.
"The task for Michael Fennelly is to put their best foot forward. Not ship too many heavy beatings, avoid relegation if they can and have the players in a good mindset where they can attack the Joe McDonagh later in the year."
