'Experience and maturity' - Offaly feel promise of Division 2A triumph

Offaly have warmly welcomed the prospect of a return to the top tier in hurling in 2024 after completing their first goal of the year by winning Division 2A.

The Faithful County held off the challenge of Kildare in Sunday's final, despite trailing by three points at the break.

Johnny Kelly's side are in the midst of a run of seven matches without a week off and looked a much-improved outfit in the second period.

Kelly took over in September after the county opted for a change in management from Michael Fennelly.

He was part of the ticket of the previous boss, with captain Jason Sampson feeling it has been a development process to develop a team in the county rather than place every sentiment on promotion and demotion.

Sampson, speaking to RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Sport, feels there is genuine improvement in Offaly, as well as opponents Kildare.

"We're building strongly the last couple of years. We had a lot of foundations put in during the last couple of years," he said.

"There are a good few of our younger lads who have two, three, four years experience now up through the team. They're getting stronger and becoming more used to inter-county hurling every day. It's that experience and maturity that is coming into the thing which is a great thing.

"It was the one of the goals at the start of the year (to win the division).

"Division 1 is where you want to be, playing the big teams every Sunday. We had a really tough league campaign. It took us a long time to get going and we felt we had a lot more in us as we were we building through the rounds. We were getting better each week. That was a bonus. Now we're back in Division 1 thank God."

The fixture scheduling is giving his manager headaches, but the Faithful captain also believes it is