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5:55pm Sunday 6 March -Laochra Gael - Na Coimhlintí
Clare v Offaly: The summer of 1998 gripped GAA followers everywhere with controversies in both Clare and Offaly hurling circles. But even more drama was to follow when they met in the All Ireland hurling semi-final. With contributions from Michael Bond, Ger Loughnane, Pat Fleury, Johnny Pilkington, Anthony Daly, Joe Dooley and Jamesie O'Connor. The Offaly v Dublin match is the deferred match on TG4 on Sunday followed by the above.

Brilliant stuff - one of my all time favourite trilogies

Those were the days my friends. Offaly footballers won the League, Birr hurlers won the All Ireland club final and then what a Summer-I hardly got time to save the turf. At the start of the championship some people thought we had a better chance of winning the football but Meath got their revenge for 97 in quickly in the first round. The day in Thurles (& Joe Dooley's 5 points) was some day. Let's hope it comes around again sometime.

o' yes they were the good old day's as a Birrman that was a great year as already said here we won the club title that year
we also had two big games with clare side clarecastle early that year with big Daithi hitting the winner in that replay.

i remember cril farrell saying on the sunday game the sunday night after beating kilkenny in the final, that he said
look he said Birr won the club all ireland final on patrick's day the best to men on the field that day he said was fullback
and centreback Joe Erritty and Brian Whelehan.

roll on six months and offaly won the all ireland he said the same two player's who played a big part in Birrs all ireland win
were now down the other end of the field and got 2-8 between them to win the all ireland final were else would you see that
he said only in offaly or Birr

turk wrote:Brilliant stuff - one of my all time favourite trilogies

Lethal Weapon was my favourite trilogy, then they made the 4th one.

The alien triology was one of my favourites until they made a holy fcuk of it by introducing a predator from a completely different film into it.

Godfather triology wasn't bad either

I'd have to say my favourite trilogy was Die hard...........
then they made a 4th one...

Ah lads, the original Star Wars Trilogy was the best, hands down!!!
Then they made 3 more

Lad's it must be a hoor to be born after 1998

i was a lad of 15 back in 1998 and i remember that day in thurles,i went mental when the final whistle went and the faithful had won.the journey home was mighty crack.clare were becoming a strong force at the latter stages of the 90s and were a hard team to beat.it would be great to see them days back,even if we got a win over a big name team and give everyone a boost.

The trilogy against Clare was superb. It was the real deal. There was no topping it, even the final that year which was obviously fantastic, just didn't top the third Clare match.

I remember standing on the pitch after the AI final in 98 and a thought came to my head that it would be a long long time before we'd see a similar day again. This thought still to this day sickens me.

i think we were unlucky in 1999 again cork i think we would have beating the cat's again in the final if they played like they
did again cork against us. the swansong for that hurling team was beating Cork in 2000 we had beaten the two top counties
in the history of hurling Kilkenny and cork. i had your moment turk that day that that was as good as it will get for a long time
i said but sure didn't we see it thats the main thing.

looking back on those good times it was a pity that the offaly team of that era didnt meet tipp. Would have loved to see offaly beat them. Agree in 1999 we left that one behind us.

While Offaly were unlucky against Cork in 1999, I don't think our back line would have held out against Kilkenny in the final.
Kilkenny put 5 goals past Offaly in the 1999 Leinster final and repeated the 5 in the following year's All Ireland.
Its hard to see how the 1999 final would have bucked that trend.

It was grand playing Cork because they had no goalscoring threat. They got one solitary goal in the entire 1999 All Ireland winning campaign.

The point i was making was kilkenny were brutal in the 1999 final and didn't get any goal's as offaly hurl well
again cork, a good ref and a switch that should have been made on the sideline would my seen us through.