Word had been going around and now Wayne McCarthy has come around. Twenty years old yet long since labelled by the brave as the future of Dublin football. So to Croke Park tomorrow afternoon and the first exposed high-pressure acid test.

Once Dublin and Longford run onto the field, there will be no mistaking McCarthy's youthful cut. He could have skipped through the schoolboy stiles without question or stood anonymous on the Hill with other aspiring talents. Instead he will run to corner forward and stand alongside Dessie Farrell.

The first impression on his first championship start may deceive. His light frame will become a major launchpad and his boot will show remarkable accuracy. No point in betting against his name getting on the scoresheet.

All through his minor and under-21 days scoring was what McCarthy did best. Last year Tom Carr brought him onto the senior panel and he ended the season with a five-minute run in the haunting Leinster final loss to Kildare. Less than a year on and he has become one of the first names to go into the game programme.

"It has always been the ambition to get on the team," he says, "and it has come quickly. But I'm happy to be have been given the chance by Tommy. And no matter when your chance comes, you have to jump at it. But it starts getting serious now as well. The dream of playing with your idols is over and I have to start producing the goods myself."

The dream started in 1995, when McCarthy celebrated his 15th birthday on the same day Dublin last won the All-Ireland. He was brought down to the dressing room afterwards, an amazing day, and watched starry-eyed as Paul Curran and Dessie Farrell and other idols swam in the joy of championship success.

But he comes into a Dublin team now at the other end of the scale, starved of success and with something to prove. He may be new, but he shares the same hunger and the same desire to bring Dublin back as the capital on the football map. Two Leinster defeats in two years is as much as they can take, and now they want that title back.

"We won't accept anything less this year. We've have definitely underachieved in the last three years, and so we want to win Leinster this year more than ever, and that goes for the supporters as well.

"When we get past that then we'll look to the All-Ireland. I know there is the second-chance route this year but no one wants to get involved with that. To win the All-Ireland you want to beat everyone that you come up against."

McCarthy is set to play a key role in that quest. Home has always been corner forward, either for county or his club Erins Isle. But even though his speed is already fine-tuned he knows as well that he is not the perfect player just yet. He has already put on a few pounds since last year but there is more bulk to be added yet.

"I know I am physically light and I will have to work on that over the next few years, and try to develop a little more. But I'm still only 20 and have a lot of filling out to do.

"But it's a help as well to be playing with the likes of Dessie around you. They have the experience and they're the ones talking to you constantly and guiding you through games. All that sort of advice brings you on and to be honest it's just great to be playing with those fellas."

For those more established players, the defeat to Kildare last year was all the more crushing. McCarthy was new to the scene and too young to suffer the full weight of the crash.

"Well it was a terrible way to lose. Dublin did play some incredible football in the first half, and we seemed to be going great. The two freak goals went in and everything just collapsed from there, but that is behind us now.

"I don't mind who we come up against this time as long as we win a Leinster medal. It would be nice to get a crack at Kildare again but it's all about who wins and not who you beat along the way." Throughout the league the Dublin management looked for those two or three players that would improve Dublin's prospects. Niall O'Donoghue was another of those to get the nod and starts in the other corner, but for long-term potential no one has been getting bigger billing than McCarthy.

"I think there was a lot of development during the league because everything has been building into the championship. That's where players are judged and the main thing is to win the All-Ireland, and that's the same dream for every player since they were in school."

A quick glance into his past shows one example of McCarthy's scope for scoring. In the Leinster minor final of 1998, he almost single-handedly denied Laois a third successive title, scoring more than half of Dublin's points before they eventually fell by one.

Right now he just enjoys everything about the game - the big day, the big atmosphere, and the big crowds. Football has always been in the family through the club and he was up there at Erins Isle kicking the ball from the age of five. Still his future is a long road and so it's time for new dreams.

"Well if we do get the Leinster title then three in-a-row would be nice, wouldn't it?"