Today's Leinster semi-final meeting of Offaly and Wexford at Nowlan Park hasn't attracted anything like the same degree of attention as the recent games in the Munster championship.

It isn't being televised live, something which would have been unthinkable any time in the last 20 years. But that doesn't mean this is any less important a match for the competing teams. Neither does it automatically mean that the fixture will turn out to be a damp squib. If it's anything like the 2003 clash of the sides at the same venue, indeed, a thrilling affair that Wexford won by a point, we'll be in for an entertaining afternoon.

It's great to see Offaly on an upward curve again. Their improvement this year is the least that John McIntyre deserves for his efforts. When Offaly approached him in the autumn of 2004, he could have been forgiven for telling them to get lost. This after all was the same county that had shafted him in 1997 after just one year in the job, his 'crime' being to have narrowly lost the provincial semi-final to the reigning All Ireland champions.

What's more, the Offaly that McIntyre was returning to were a very different prospect to the Offaly of his first coming. No big name after big name laden down with Leinster and All Ireland medals here. Instead, this was a bunch that would be facing Division Two hurling in 2005.

Not only that, Offaly men themselves were not queuing in the aisles to take over the reins. Strange:

they seldom do. The Faithful County?

Still, McIntyre took the plunge, stepping into a breach where angels might have feared to tread. After hitting rock bottom against Kilkenny last year, the former stalwart Tipperary centre-back is at last seeing the jigsaw come together. He and his selectors Daithi Regan and Joachim Kelly bring a wealth of knowledge and experience of top-flight hurling to the task. Their stated objective is to leave Offaly hurling in robust health when they step down at the end of the 2007 championship. What with drawing with Cork and beating Waterford on their way to reaching this season's National League quarter-finals, they've already gone some distance towards achieving it.

To their credit, McIntyre and co haven't been shy about throwing youngsters in at the deep end. The best known of the new faces are Joe Bergin and Paul Cleary (right). It may not be unusual that both players are teenagers, but it is unusual that they both occupy central positions: 18-year-old Bergin at full-forward and, more oddly still, 19year-old Cleary at full-back, a position that has traditionally been regarded as the domain of much older and more experienced players. Clearly the Offaly management believe that if they're good enough, they're old enough.

Wexford had their ups and downs during the league. They began the competition well, finished it badly and needed extra-time to see off Laois in a relegation play-off. Morale was low, not helped by the uncertainty over Darragh Ryan's continuing knee problems.

Darragh is unavailable today and will clearly be badly missed. On the other hand, Paul Codd's return is a boost, and Wexford have been encouraged by their improved form in recent challenge games.

To win here they'll need Codd doing his stuff from placed balls and from play if and when he's brought on. For their part Offaly will once more look to Gary Hanniffy, a mightily built man, for a mighty performance. I still remember how well Hanniffy did against no less a figure than Seanie McMahon in the 1998 All Ireland semifinal replay at Semple Stadium. That's the kind of leadership Offaly will require today. They have other men they'll be looking to as well. Michael Cordial had a stormer at midfield in this match three years ago. So did their goalie Brian Mullins, who stopped bullets that afternoon. Brendan Murphy has spent too long in the shadow of his performance in the 2000 Leinster final, where he roasted Philly Larkin.

And Brian Carroll must be heartened by seeing his old St Kieran's colleague Eoin Kelly doing so well of late;

there wasn't that much between the pair of them during their colleges' hurling careers.

It's a desperately difficult match to call. I've changed my mind several times since the beginning of the week. Offaly to shade it. Barely.

By a whisker.

Maybe.

Today's losers will go into the All Ireland qualifying series where they may well meet Waterford, a team who can take a lot of positives from their defeat last Sunday. To me it appeared that Waterford genuinely didn't believe they could beat Tipp until early in the second half, at which stage they proceeded to reduce an eight-point deficit to a two-point deficit in a short space of time and but for Lar Corbett's fine goal could easily have won.

Potentially the biggest silver lining to emerge from Pairc Ui Chaoimh for them was the realisation that if James Murray can continue to make a fist of it at centre-back, then Ken McGrath will be free to orchestrate matters from the middle of the field. The return of Eoin Kelly should be worth another couple of points to them; the same goes for John Mullane's eventual restoration to full fitness. If only Waterford can eradicate their chronic tendency to shoot themselves in the foot, they'll be a match for anybody come late July.