Camus, who played a little football but never gripped a hurl, once said that to understand the world one has to turn away from it on occasion; to serve men better one has to hold them at a distance for a while. Brian Corcoran, last of the great dual stars, understands.

During Corcoran's two-year break from the game he turned his back completely. He watched two games, a club match and the 2003 All-Ireland final, and that was it. His hurleys gathered dust under the stairs untouched for two years.

Corcoran never so much as went for a run. He'd been running all his life. He was sick of it.

"I was tired of the game. I was tired of training. After winning in 1999, by the time we got back in 2000 I felt we had trained enough. Offaly was a big disappointment, obviously. In 2001, I was finding it harder and harder to face training. It didn't happen overnight. It was building for a while. I had to quit."

Corcoran is an icon of Cork sport, one of those names synonymous with the county's tradition of excellence and passion. To hear him talk of jadedness and fatigue is surprising - until you look at his record. He scratched out his reputation for brilliance against a dismal landscape.

He lost his first minor All-Ireland final to Kilkenny in 1988, and lost his second, to the same stripy men, two years later.

His under-21 career brought even less joy.

And his accession to senior ranks brought an All-Ireland final defeat to Kilkenny again, in 1992. He was hurler of the year and an instant All Star. And then came a run of arid summers as the world went crazy.

Stone crazy. The kids coming up behind Corcoran were winning minor All-Irelands and under-21 All-Irelands just as young Corkmen are supposed to. Corcoran was living in a senior hurling universe where Offaly, Clare and Wexford were the kingpins.

There was always the slender consolation of football. He won a minor All-Ireland in 1991, before graduating to an under-21 bauble in 1994. He had been there, though, when Cork lost to Derry on a greasy day in the senior final of 1993. For all his excellence, it seemed Corcoran's main claim to fame would be to have played for Cork in both codes when it was neither popular nor profitable.

He was a cornerstone of JBM's young team which bucked the trend and won in 1999, but while his colleagues were looking to the future he already felt himself to be burning out. The return to ordinariness in the next two seasons made him question it all.

"I always said I'd give up when I didn't want to play. Give your whole life to it, and if your not getting anything out, well, you're wasting your time. I wasn't enjoying it, it was too much of a commitment. I had other things to do."

Coming back wasn't a click-of-the-fingers job. He went to the 2003 All-Ireland and felt comfortable in the stand. He met the players whom he hadn't seen in two years and something stirred in him a little. He figured Cork were a good bet to win the following year's All-Ireland. Cork were about to lose Setanta.

On the other hand, his body hadn't got bigger but it had got doughier. There was the fear coming back would expose him to embarrassment, that the game would have moved on while he'd had his back turned.

He made the leap. Returned to club hurling. Squeezed on to the panel and into the team. Built a sunlit annex to his career.

"I'm glad I took the years off. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be playing now. It recharged the batteries and rekindled the interest."

It's all been good since he came back. Two All-Irelands and a 70-minute separation from three-in-a-row immortality.

His new office was in the forwards, a spot which he had always coveted. Training, as it turned out, had become more scientific. Less slog for more gain. His body was pleasantly surprised.

"Obviously it's easy to say you are enjoying it all when you are successful. We've won tight matches. Not much difference, maybe a point in them, but that point is the difference between night and day. If we had won in 2000, I don't know, maybe I would have stayed playing. It's hard to know what is hunger and what is desire. It's hard to put the finger on it. You just know yourself when it starts to wane. At the end of the day you have to train to play the game. You won't win unless you give it everything. I didn't want to do that in 2001. Now I do."

His contribution since coming back has been of a magnitude impossible to measure in goals and points. His scores always seem to come at a time when Cork most need them. His contributions have timing as well as excellence.

He speaks of how as a forward he can dole out his energy as he sees fit, go for the balls he needs to go for, leave the ones he has no chance of reaching. He's happy. But . . .

"Would I have enjoyed the last two years if we didn't win? I don't think any player will enjoy Sunday unless they win the game. People say you play the game for the enjoyment or the fun. Not at this level. I'm not looking beyond the game. A lot of people every year tell me I should walk. It's easy to walk when you lose. It's hard to walk when you are winning."

The allure of the three-in-a-row he chooses not to deny. "It's an extra carrot, but from our point of view it's an All-Ireland final."

He reflects on the rarity of final appearances, on Tom Kenny, who has been four years on the panel and has been to four All-Ireland finals.

"It won't last," he says, "we just have to make hay while the sun shines. We can't think of anything that's gone before."

And stuff that will come? He can think of that. He wanders off into an interesting side street. "Teams have done the three-in-a-row before, but I don't think any team has played in five finals in a row."

Motivation springs eternal.