Sampson and Offaly have come a long way but want to keep journey going

Killian Sampson was called up to the Faithful fold in 2020 - and he's experienced tough days with the Faithful.

STONE FACE: Killian Sampson of Offaly poses for a portrait during the launch of the 2026 GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship at Blarney Castle in Cork. PIC: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Those among us who devote far too much screen time to scrolling on Instagram, TikTok, and X will be well familiar with the social media meme of ‘How it started vs. how it's going’.

It is not usual practice to carry viral social media trends onto these pages, but in the case of Killian Sampson, there is absolutely nothing more appropriate to chart his journey in green, white, and gold.

How it started was a championship debut against Sligo at a near-empty Markievicz Park in the third-tier Christy Ring Cup. How it’s going is an All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork, to be watched by over 30,000 at Semple Stadium.

Sampson was called up to the Faithful fold in 2020. Offaly hurling’s nadir had been reached the previous season, the four-time All-Ireland-winning county relegated to the third step of the championship ladder.

A quick escape was envisaged, the same as Sampson envisaged a very different start to his Offaly existence.

Having failed to make the matchday panel for the Christy Ring semi-final against Down, the Covid regulations of the day meant he wasn’t permitted to travel with the squad to Newry. Instead, he went for a run around Shinrone the morning of the game, streamed the fixture on Clubber, and sat stunned on the couch as Down bested them on penalties.

Sampson was on the bus in 2021. The bus brought him to Markievicz Park. This was Offaly’s world now. The notion of being on a bus headed for almost sold-out Thurles was utterly laughable.

“When you're growing up in the fields around Shinrone, Birr, Ballinamere-Durrow, or wherever, you probably wouldn't have thought Markievicz Park would be where you'd make your debut. I probably didn't dream of it, but that's where we were. We just had to knuckle down and get out of there,” said the Offaly No.6.

“They were tough days. They had players that day who gave us an awful hard time. It wasn't easy hurling at that standard. You think you'll go down and bounce straight back up, it'll be easy and you'll beat everyone comfortably. That wasn't the case.” Although only 24, Sampson’s ‘How it started’ couldn’t be further unrelated to teammates just two and three years younger.

Navigating Sligo, Wicklow, and Derry miles removed from the spotlight and hurling relevance compared most unglamourously to the cult following that got behind the minor team of Dan Ravenhill, Adam Screeney, and Shane Rigney. The latter knew only of drawing thousands of reinvigorated Offaly supporters to O’Moore Park and Dr Cullen Park of midweek Wednesday evenings.

“There's a core group of us that have been through those tough days,” Sampson continued.

“We'll look back and remember them, but we don't ever want to be back there again. Obviously there has been a serious turnaround and serious structures put in place to make sure that hopefully doesn't happen again.

“A completely different experience to Sunday, going to what will hopefully be a packed-out Thurles for an All-Ireland quarter-final. It's exactly where we want to be. Hopefully, this is our standard now going forward.” This has always been Sampson’s standard. Even when sitting on the couch for the Christy Ring semi-final of 2020 and his Markievicz Park introduction a year later, Sampson never lowered his own bar.

The Offaly centre-back wanted to be a teacher, still does, but he also wanted to go to UL and expose himself to the highest step in third-level hurling. He wanted to find out how he’d fare against the market-leaders of his age from Clare, Limerick, and Tipp, as well as the odd few who enrolled from Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, and Waterford.

Sampson fared just fine. He was a starter on back-to-back winning Fitzgibbon Cup teams. He more than held his own in half-back lines alongside Bryan O’Mara, Cian Galvin, and Darragh Corcoran.

“I always told my parents that I was going to UL and that was it. I wanted to be a primary school teacher, but I was going to UL and whatever way I had to go about it, I'd go about it.

“We got to three Fitzgibbon finals, and I got to hurl with so many unbelievable hurlers, lads who have won All-Irelands in the last two, three, four years.

“Obviously that's something I knew would probably happen if I got the opportunity to go to UL, mixing it with them and you take that belief when you can start on teams for a couple of years with lads that are hurling in the Liam MacCarthy and Munster and Leinster Championship.

“They were great days personally for me and they gave me that inner belief that I could push on to the next level.” 

The next level is Cork in Thurles and the opportunity to carry Offaly into a first All-Ireland semi-final in 26 years. It seems farfetched that Markievicz Park would exist in the same, still fledgling inter-county career “We have a really, really good squad and management team that are pushing it all on and we just want these days to continue.”  

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