Offaly find their killer instinct

LIKE a cornered animal, Offaly have long been renowned as a team that is at its most dangerous when their backs were to the wall.

That image has been badly tarnished with some limp championship performances in recent years, but they rediscovered some of that famed doggedness of old yesterday in Croke Park by hanging on in the face of adversity.

If things weren’t exactly desperate, they were in a tight spot all the same. With 22 minutes to go, the outcome to this Leinster SFC quarter-final was balanced on a knife-edge and Kildare seemed to hold more of the aces.