The first of September, 1996. The day that the Lord made.

Ask them what they might reasonably have anticipated for Wexford hurling over the course of the next 10 years and predictably the answers don't vary. Being consistently competitive. More silverware of various shapes and sizes.

Another All Ireland within the next four or five years, certainly, and Dempsey for one maintains that had they managed to make the breakthrough earlier than 1996, Wexford would have won two All Irelands during the decade.

"But we forgot, " Dunne adds, "that it had taken us 28 years to win the one we did."

They won the battle but lost the war. They won the war but failed to win the peace. Whatever. All the days that the Lord didn't make.

Amid the woe of aftermath and the various reasons for Wexford's failure to build on 1996, the most obvious one being that the team that finally reached the land of milk and honey was a team three years past its peak, misfortune figures only tangentially. Granted, the inaugural season of the back-door system in 1997 lumbered them with Tipperary rather than Down as All Ireland semi-final opponents, while Johnny Dooley's late sucker-punch of a goal in the 1998 Leinster semifinal prompted a hangover it took them three years to shake off.

But statistics don't trade in hard-luck stories. Shockingly, Wexford have endured no fewer than eight defeats by a double-digit margin in the championship since 1996 (see panel). By way of contrast, and marked contrast at that, Limerick and Waterford have each suffered only one such defeat. When Wexford folk sigh that ah, if only their lads could be more consistent, they're overlooking one area in which their lads have been horribly consistent indeed.

Strip out the wins against Laois and Dublin, moreover, and the county's post-1996 championship record is even less impressive than the stats suggest.

As the Tribune has over the years bombarded readers with the bones of Wexford's various skeletons ad nauseam (no All Ireland minor title since 1968, no Leinster minor title since 1985, etc etc), we're happy to give the floor to Jim Breen, a selector when the county won the Tony Forristal tournament in 1997. He has another sub-clause for your consideration: no appearance in the Forristal final in the meantime.

"These are awful statistics, but we're doing very little in a constructive way to change them, " argues Breen, until recently the assistant secretary of the local Coiste na nOg.

"At every county board meeting they're busy arguing over fixtures or this, that and the other. The bottom line is that Wexford hurling is falling so far behind other counties it's alarming."

Of the bright young things from the 1997 Tony Forristal team, Des Mythen, Keith Rossiter and Rory Jacob have lasted the distance. They're all clubmates, incidentally. Or, rather, not incidentally. "It's no coincidence they're all from Oulart and it's no coincidence that Oulart are winning county titles, " Breen says.

"Because Oulart clearly have a better structure than we have at county level."

The plethora of countywide initiatives . . . skills and development schemes, under-11 ground hurling, the underage development squads, the Damien Fitzhenry School of Hurling, the ASH project in the New Ross area . . . is, Breen goes on, undermined by the lack of coordination between them.

"Although these schemes all have their merits, they're totally fragmented. There's no proper system in place whereby promising youngsters can be monitored and developed."

The case for improved coordination is echoed by Rory Kinsella, Wexford's assistant coach 10 years ago.

Prior to FCJ Bunclody's recent Leinster colleges' B semi-final, Kinsella arranged a skills session in the school for the Friday evening. Then he discovered that one player was due for county squad training at 6.30pm, while others had intermediate or minor training with their clubs later in the evening. "What's even worse, of course, " says Kinsella, "is that most of these are dual players." Wexford's continuing determination to try and serve both masters remains the biggest stumbling block to consistent success in each code. "When you diversify, " as Kinsella puts it, "you dilute."

What is to be done? Invest, says former Wexford manager Tony Dempsey, in "serious coaching". Appoint a director of coaching, give him four or five assistants and let them embark on a five-year programme. "Yes, it'd cost money, but in comparison with the money we've spent on physical facilities it would be minuscule."

Target the secondary schools, urges Liam Dunne.

"Without strong second-level schools we're going nowhere."

Dunne's autobiography I Crossed The Line includes an incendiary chapter on Wexford hurling's absence of structures and lack of vision, not that the wrath of the county board descended on him as a consequence. "I don't think anyone took the slightest heed of what I said, " Dunne recalls, almost glumly.

"We haven't learned anything."

Streamline the local championship and reduce the number of senior clubs from 16 to 12, says Tom Dempsey. If it's good enough for Kilkennyf At the moment, Dempsey adds, all that club hurlers in Wexford are guaranteed is "two meaningful games" in summer. They know that one will take place in mid-May;

they've no idea when the next will take place, but it almost certainly won't be till August or September. Dempsey cites the case of a chap from Buffer's Alley who went to the US for three months last year.

He ended up missing one championship match.

"I'm very much worried for the club scene here. You have to have a foundation. Club players need four or five games during the summer months. At the moment in Wexford they're not getting them."

Dempsey fears too for the coming generation. He's involved with the Wexford under-17s and as such will be part of the county minor backroom team next year. A great bunch of kids, he bubbles. Enthusiastic, dedicated, burning to do well. It's up to their elders to put in place a system that will allow them to achieve just that.

Under the current rules of engagement, teenagers in the county subsist on what amounts to a hurling starvation diet.

An illustration. A couple of years ago the Wexford under16s drew with Joe Canning's Galway in a cracking Arrabawn Co-op final. When the same two sets of players met as minors, Galway won easily against a Wexford side that was a ghost of its Arrabawn incarnation. Easily explicable; every Wexford lad was a dual player who simply hadn't hurled enough in the intervening two years.

A lack of underage games helping lead, in a vicious, unsquarable circle, to a lack of underage success. The latter is cited by Tony Dempsey as the greatest single obstacle he encountered during his two years as Wexford manager. "You're bringing in youngsters who don't have underage medals and pitting them against lads from Cork and Galway who do. That's very hard to overcome. You're swimming against it all the time."

We finish, most predictably of all, with some words from Liam 'Wexford's fish stinks from the head' Griffin. All the needs he's outlined before.

Outlined a thousand times before.

The need for a hurling director. The need to target the very young. The need for solid, coordinated structures.

The need for fresh blood to drive new initiatives forward.

The need for a programme that accommodates both hurling and football without detriment to either. The need to realise that the current set-up doesn't. "What we have at the moment and have had for years, " according to Griffin, "is a mishmash that has delivered us hardship and heartache. You can't take on Tiger Woods by being a parttime golfer."

The Wexford county board will be advertising the new post of hurling director in the coming weeks. Ten years on from 1996's brief candle, they can't afford to get it wrong again this time.