"Ah Jaysus," he says, "how many more times do I have to answer this ques tion."

Just once.

"So, how did you get here?"

If Brian Lacey had landed in Conleth's Park, Newbridge, in a big cigar-shaped space ship, his provenance could scarcely have aroused more interest. Coming from the obscurity of Tipperary football to the giddy pastures of Kildare, there to stake his claim as footballer of the year, has been a journey which has changed his career and the fates of the teams involved.

Without Lacey's vigorous chaperoning of fancied corner forwards this summer it is impossible to imagine Kildare reaching the destination they arrive at tomorrow. Then again, with Lacey playing for Tipperary and manacling himself to Maurice Fitzgerald this summer, Tipperary's footballers might have wrestled Kerry to the ground at last. But here he is in Newbridge, where every dog and divil has a passionate lilywhite heart. Telling strangers why he is here. He recites the story like a hurried kid reciting a prayer. Working in Dublin for two years . . . travelling to Tipp was getting too tough . . . joined Round Towers in Kildare as a base for training . . . Glen Ryan said to come out for Kildare . . . here I am.

Amen.

That's the outline. He fills in the colours as he expands on other matters. His father is a good friend of Christy Roche, who encouraged the link with Round Towers. He has several relations in Kildare town anyway. He said he'd give Kildare a spin because he wanted to see what he could do if he bent his mind to it. Reared in a family of sporting ecumenists, he dabbled in soccer and rugby and hurling on the way to his current eminence.

"I wasn't putting in a proper effort with Tipperary, really, only training one night a week and doing what I wanted on the other nights. If I was going to be honest with myself, I was going to have to give it a lash with Kildare. I have a few relations in Kildare town too."

And here he is. The Kildare number two. Aware that who he marks in the All-Ireland final is of acute concern to Galway. Given the number of stars he has left for dead this summer, Galway must decide whether to sacrifice somebody to him or go for the jackpot and try and break him. Lacey works with Coyle Hamilton and had always expected that the line of work he is in would bring him to Dublin, making his former life as a Tipperary footballer that critical fraction more difficult to maintain.

"Everyone talks about food, like, `Do you only get sandwiches in the weaker counties?' We got looked after well in Tipp, plenty of food and plenty of gear and all that. There was no problem with that. You have no support driving you on, though. The crowd at training here . . . you see the size of the crowd - that helps.

"With the level of fitness required, though, it's hard to be going up and down to Tipperary. We'd train four nights a week here in Kildare and that's the sort of effort you need to be putting in these days if you are going to get anywhere." Breaking away from Arravale Rovers and the sinewy football tradition in Tipperary was a wrench, but not a heartbreaking one. He grew up with a clatter of brothers in Tipperary town, where his family runs a hotel. As a Tipp footballer he noticed the exalted status of the county hurlers but never resented it - his family's first faith was the mainstream faith of the county.

"We were always hurling. The father played in the '60s. He didn't make the Tipp team with the likes of Babs and the Doyles, but we were all hurlers. I played minor for Tipp in 1992; we were beaten in a Munster final. It was always hurling number one for me until under-21, when I didn't make the Tipp panel so I switched to the football."

He made his debut for Kildare in low-key circumstances early in this year's league campaign. A dismally unglamorous away trip to Newry to play Down on an afternoon when Kildare looked a little squeaky on the hinges. The former Waterford player Gavin Keane made a debut for Kildare the same day and though the new boys were scarcely noticed outside The Curragh, there was predictable grumbling in Kildare about importing talent to a county which prides itself on its breeding. Luckily, Mick O'Dwyer had sired a trojan horse of his own.

"There are always hurlers on the ditch ready to shoot you down," remembers Lacey. "I heard stuff going around, all right. The first match in front of a Kildare crowd was against Cork and there was a bit of chat about me joining before that, but Karl O'Dwyer was in for the first game that day and suddenly all the talk was about Karl. I was forgotten about altogether. I just played my game and went on from there. I was accepted."

The acceptance was welcome and reassuring. Presenting himself among new team-mates on a howling wet and windy night in Hawkfield he'd found his mind asking questions about the wisdom of this latest move.

"Lashing rain and wind and I wondering, `What am I doing here now? I could be in Tipp one night a week and on the other night sitting in watching the television and letting on I was training', something which I was guilty of a number of times."

The first thing which struck him was the competition for places. Kildare had 35 hopefuls auditioning for places during the winter training slog. In Tipp it would be a good night to have 20 out. In Kildare players were joining the panel as soon as they were asked. Kept a guy on his feet.

"I wasn't confident at the start. I'd be looking at 35 players training and wondering. Looking at one player and saying, `He's better than me', and another saying, `So is he', until I got to know everyone. Coming near the championship you could see things falling into place. I seemed to be given the number two jersey most nights and for a few games."

This summer has brought about an extraordinary change in his circumstance. From the brave but inevitable accession to a Munster shark he has played on a team which has beaten the last three All-Ireland winners. Not just that but he has marked and subdued three of the most celebrated forwards of the decade: Jason Sherlock, Tommy Dowd and Maurice Fitzgerald.

None of it has altered his world view. His game is based on speed and gluey marking and the demands of life as a corner back appear to suit him. He played out the championship for Tipperary in 1997 as a wing back and a centre back but the previous two years of senior fare had been passed as a corner back. The secret is in the concentration.

"Every game I go out and play I am worried about that one minute when the forward goes around you and scores the goal. I never get carried away. Mark O'Connor had a great game against Kerry. Got no recognition for it. Then Maurice got the goal and Mark was forgotten about."

Talk of Maurice Fitzgerald leads us to the ongoing inquiry as to his out-of-sorts performance in the semi-final. Word along the sidelines was that Lacey was under his skin to such an extent that even his finesse with free kicks deserted him. Whispers about a broken nose which Lacey received in a challenge game.

"He didn't break my nose. There was an accidental collision. I never marked him before ever except in that challenge. I think he just wasn't himself on the day. He'd had a few injuries, he wasn't motoring and then the ball they gave in was ball that suited me, it was ball in along the ground. You are only as good a corner forward or corner back as your midfielders let you be."

As a newcomer he scarcely knows where to place his finger when mapping out the season and looking for a turning point. Definitely, he thinks, beating Dublin in Croke Park gave the team a feeling that they deserved to go on further this season but, for Lacey, the highlight remains the defeat of Kerry.

"Personally, that was more satisfying than winning the Leinster championship but if you look at all the games, except Laois, they still went to the wire, right down to the last minute. We aren't going to get carried away. It could go down to the wire and Galway get the last point and we're losers then."

His parting words are the fitting antidote to the rampant hype.