Michael Moynihan: Johnny Pilkington and hurlers shooting from the lip

Looking back now Pilkington’s career appears to show the fork in the road, the cigarette-puffing wizard coming up against the new physical regimes, the last free spirit before the erosion of personality

Johnny Pilkington of the Offaly 1994 All-Ireland winning Jubilee team as the team were honoured in 2019. 'Nowadays it just seems to be a little bit dull,' he said of the lack of characters in modern GAA

Thanks, then, to Johnny Pilkington of Offaly for appearing on Laochra Gael last week and reminding us all of ourselves in the nineties, when we all thought we were bould out, with that the preferred spelling.

The nineties, eh? Even in the Offalyman’s own sport few decades seem to have lasted so long: Cork opened the decade with the first leg of the Double, but the game that team played looks a century removed from the game being played by the next Cork team to win an All-Ireland nine years later.