Current Offaly hurling captain Brian Carroll will represent his late father Pat Carroll when the Faithful County's 1985 Liam McCarthy Cup winning team is introduced to the crowd before Sunday's All-Ireland final.

A star forward on Offaly's 1981 All-Ireland winning team, Coolderry clubman Carroll missed the '85 final due to illness, having played right up to the semi-final win over Antrim, and sadly died the following March aged just 30.

"Pat came on the panel not long after me and we played minor and under 21 all the way up along with Joachim Kelly and so many of us from that era," 1985 winning captain Pat Fleury told the Irish Daily Mirror.

"We were very close and it was an emotional occasion to realise we were back in the dressing room, having won an All-Ireland and he wasn't there. It was very emotional. I found it incredible to look around the dressing room, even though it was packed with people and the whole lot, but you'd be expecting to see him appear out of some corner."

Before they are introduced before Sunday's final as the jubilee team, the Faithful heroes will gather in Doheny and Nesbitt's on Dublin's Baggot Street on Saturday night to make the 25th anniversary and recall that famous day when they defeated Galway to win their second All-Ireland. Tweet

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