All-Ireland Club Hurling Championship Final: Tom Humphrieson why the prince of present-day hurlers may see victory on the national holiday as the ultimate coronation.

Such was the way of things that hurling and the talk of hurling were taken for granted like the fresh air and the wind and the rain. The Shefflins had a pub in the village and the dog evenings of the working week would be filled with preview and anticipation. Saturday and Sunday were for reviewing and analysis.

"I suppose we talked about nothing else but hurling but it was never a case of feeling like, 'hey, why don't we ever talk about anything else?' It was so natural that you wouldn't even notice it. There was always some match on, some row, some fella going well or goin' badly. You wouldn't run out of hurling talk."

Every hurling career is a journey but for Henry Shefflin, regal among hurlers since late in the last century, the seasons have seen a steady expansion of his dominion. And there is some irony that for a Ballyhale boy this St Patrick's Day will bring the belated consummation of his earliest dream.

The club. The club. The club. As is. As was. As it will be. Beginning middle and end. He was a child in the great years, when one house in the small parish, the Fennellys, gave seven sons to the senior team. They were a young club bursting with the energy of newness and possibility.

The Fennelllys and most other young hurlers in the parish had first swung ash wands under the tutelage of Joe Dunphy, the local schoolmaster. Henry Shefflin's memories begin under the watch of the same kindly eye.

"My first clear memory would be following after Joe Dunphy the principal asking for a game with the bigger lads. I was about seven or eight and we were looking at 12-year-olds, a big gang of us, and we were trailing after Joe. Sir! Sir! Sir! Just begging to get on the pitch. That's how it starts in a place like Ballyhale, I suppose. In the beginning you're begging to be on the team."

In the end you'll be begging them to let you off. He wasn't quick, a bit too fond of the spuds, as he says, but his timing was poor too. He caught the end of the golden years. For school they played Roinn B or Roinn C. For club they were basement grade but they were starched with enough residual expectation and pride to make them feisty.

His first season as a princeling playing for Shamrocks was at under-14. He looks back with fond regret at that campaign. They weren't top grade but they were decent and doughty. They made the county final against their near neighbours and rivals Thomastown.

A first sample of the elemental pressures the game can bring. Henry stood over a penalty to win the match with the last poc of the game. The awesome silence and expectation above him. Missed the thing. Stood there while Thomastown went whooping past him.

Nothing breaks your heart like the club. Nothing fills the memories like the club either. He talks about the days when five or six of them would be wedged into his mother's car and they'd rattle off out from Ballyhale half expecting to get lost, fully expecting to win, every day pregnant with anticipation.

"I remember one particular day we had to get to Muckalee in north Kilkenny and the mother got completely lost. I was eager. I was getting my game and fancying meself. One of the lads in the back wasn't playing though and he thought it was hilarious that we were lost. He was joking and messing. I wasn't too happy. I threw the head a bit. To this day if you asked me to get to Muckalee though, I couldn't."

He came upstream through the grades with Aidan Cummins, Bob Aylward and Tom Coogan. All the one age, all carrying the expectations of a club which went into sharp decline when the golden era expired.

Ballyhale were All-Ireland champions in the spring of 1990. They won a Kilkenny title in 1991. By 1995 they were a junior side. In a village of just a few dozen houses the decline could have been terminal. They hadn't been feckless with the future when they had plenty though.

"We had gone down in 1995. Down for two or three years. All the lads were still playing when it happened. I was 16, I'd say, and Muckalee beat them. Aidan Maloney was coming on the scene at the time and he got two deadly goals for them. That was it. The lads finished up. The new brigade was in. It was rough at first.

"The boys had done enough before then; they retired with pride. Myself, Bob Aylward and Aidan Cummins, we all came in at the same time.

"It was tough going. You learned a lot quickly thrown in as a teenager. We didn't know anything about contesting county finals. It was a learning curve. Playing more experienced and older players. You learn quickly."

Ballyhale were willing to replace the golden generation not just because they had to, but because they could have faith in what was coming through from Joe Dunphy's nursery.

"We were down in the C and D grades coming up but we were lucky enough. We contested a lot of county finals. We got to minor grade A and we won it in the year I was there.

"We beat James Stephens in the county final. In the south final we beat Dunamaggin. We were rank outsiders for those games. Dunamaggin had about five minor county panellists and we beat them in the south final."

That day brought the one and only sending off of his career. A second yellow. For mouthing.

"One of the lads, David Walsh, when the ref went to book me the second time, he ran over and took the book off him. I remember it to this day. David's not playing anymore - he's just married - but he took it off him. Gave it back quick enough though."

He remembers the miserable final 10 minutes: the seconds limping by, himself on the sideline, praying that they'd hold on, feeling the weight suddenly of everything he owed the club.

He got the marching orders on a Saturday, luckily enough. Two weeks' worth of suspension wasn't as expensive as it could have been. Missed an intermediate county semi- final for Ballyhale the next week. Got back the following Sunday for the county minor final.

"We played James Stephens. It was the best underage performance I was ever involved in. We didn't expect it ourselves. I played okay. I felt I had to give something back."

Next week they won the county intermediate title. Back senior with a minor championship-winning team coming through. Who wouldn't bristle with anticipation?

Croke Park today will be different for the game's reigning monarch.

He remembers growing up and all his heroes were local.

"I looked to Liam Fennelly. He was captain twice. And Ger was up there on the national scale as well. All brilliant hurlers. I had a fondness for Wattie Phelan. He was corner back; he cold read the game like nobody I've seen. Dick Walsh was playing. If he was asked to do a job he'd do it. Jimmy Lawlor was centre forward and one of the best overhead strikers I ever saw.

"The club as a whole was a great place to be."

He remembers especially the 1989 county final. His mother is a Glenmore woman and Ballyhale were playing Glenmore. It was level with four minutes to go. Then Glenmore pulled two ahead.

"My cousins were all Glenmore. When they went two up I made a beeline over to the other side to where my father was. I knew the slagging was going to start and I wasn't in the mood to take it. As I was walking over, Paul Phelan in the last minute came bursting through for a goal to win by a point. I remember to this day trying to jump up in the air as high as I could.

"Emotionally, I suppose it's hard to say what Paddy's Day means. I'll have great memories of this year in years to come. It's what I grew up with. I'll look back so fondly. September in Croker is on a national scale. This weekend is local.

"It's Ballyhale. You might say we represent Kilkenny or Leinster but first and foremost it's Ballyhale. All the colours are up. It's special. Every GAA player loves to get there but what I grew up with in Ballyhale, watching them win club All-Irelands, I had that as my target. All I wanted was to play in Croke Park on St Patrick's day. The last couple of years though I just wanted a county final medal."

He talks about how badly he took the 2005 final, a day when he was held scoreless and reckons he missed 2-4. It haunted him in flashback form for months. A year later he put it all to rest. Ten points on a majestic afternoon.

The road to St Patrick's Day opened up.

Today represents a chapter in his life which, should it have a happy ending, will establish the rest of the story nicely. At the end of the month he marries Deirdre. The house on the hills above Ballyhale is just finished. Work is changing, getting more settled. After the wedding he goes to the Caribbean for a honeymoon and then comes back and turns his attention to the black-and-amber and the demands of summer.

The accumulation of medals and All Star awards and hurler-of-the-year baubles seems part suddenly of the first phase of his career. He has enough time left to establish millennial greatness, immortality. He's one step beyond that in the head though.

"It's funny. I remember as a young fella going off to junior matches and marking some fella of 38 or 39 and that was the way then. This weekend seems like a long way from back then for all of us but please God I'll be able to do that some day. Be the fella that's 38 or 39. That's the great thing about the GAA."

What has been. What is. What will be. Today is a happy snapshot along the great road.