Last Tuesday week Mick Galwey came up to Jeremy Staunton and told him he was in the squad. A puzzled Staunton responded: "yeah, of course I am, I'm playing against Bridgend on Saturday." No, says Galwey, you've been called into the Irish squad to play Samoa. "Yeah sure," said a doubting Staunton, thinking this was Galwey the joker again, and still did soon after outside Musgrave Park when a journalist asked him how he felt about his call-up. Only when hearing it on the news on the car radio did he finally accept it was true.

Training went well and with Girvan Dempsey troubled by an Achilles strain it was rumoured that Staunton would win his first cap. Still he daren't believe until, at 9.30 last Wednesday morning at the squad's meeting in the secluded preserve at the Glenview Hotel in Wicklow, Brian O'Brien read out the team. "Full back: Jeremy Staunton..."

The rest is a blur. He didn't hear another name. He felt a mixture of shock and elation. He stared hard at the ground, trying harder still not to smile.

At the end of the meeting, every player came over to congratulate him personally. He tried to stay cool, but couldn't control his smile, which just kept broadening, even on the coach journey from Greystones to Lansdowne Road.

At last, finally, he had reached his holy grail. It seems perverse to use the words "at last, finally" about a 21-year-old, yet that's almost how it seems. This is, primarily, a reflection on his talent. He seems to have been born to play this game. He's strong, quick, elusive, with an eye for a gap, and he's a serious, two-footed kicker of a ball. He has that X-factor.

He was also part of the Irish squad which toured Australia over two years ago. The then 19-year-old outhalf was included in the 22-man squad for the second Test, but along with Ciaran Scally was the only replacement not used that day in Perth, instead spending 80 minutes straining on a leash in the Subiaco Oval.

He seems to have been on a leash ever since, playing more for Ireland A than Munster, where he flitted in and out of a successful team which simply had no room for him. For he wanted it desperately. God, never has a kid seemed to want it so much and so quickly.

At times, Staunton admits, he was possibly too impatient or impetuous for his own good. "You're at your best when you're relaxed and you're focused, let's put it that way. Last year if I got a chance I was possibly trying too hard."

You sense he might have given Munster coach Declan Kidney the odd headache or too and throughout it all his unofficial mentor, Killian Keane, has been an important calming influence. "I'd be lost without him," he says.

Staunton is a very nice, approachable lad, not at all the cocky, arrogant young man which you might expect from his self-assured, often irreverent style of play. Off the pitch, he seems even a little quiet, softly spoken and introverted. As with his more restrained style of play this season, he seems a little more measured and assured in his answers.

He's undoubtedly had to curb a very free, independent spirit but it's worth stating that the infamous time he dropped the ball over the line when running in a try for Garryowen last season with a one-handed carry was born out of exuberance, not arrogance. The subsequent flak hurt him. You watch Staunton play and more than anything you see someone who just loves playing the game.

The dream of playing for Ireland was fostered at around eight or nine, by which time his father Willie (who played on the wing for Clanwilliam and Galbally) was taking him to Lansdowne Road for internationals. The middle child of five (he has two brothers and two sisters) and encouraged by his father and his mother, Anne, sport was a constant presence in his formative years and a far bigger lure than the family dairy farm.

"I gave everything a go. Hurling, football, I gave soccer a go, I played handball, I played badminton, swimming. Whatever was going, I gave it a lash, even badminton. To hell with everything else. But there was just something about rugby. It was the only sport at that age in which I could show it off. Campese was my favourite player and my dad used to get videos, like 100 best tries, and even at eight people would tell me I had a sidestep back then. And I didn't know I had it, I was dummying and I didn't know why I was doing it. Rugby was the only sport I could express that."

Having played under-age in his local club in Galbally, on the Limerick-Tipperary border, Staunton's career began to take off in a good team at St Munchin's, though he is still haunted by memories of Junior and Senior cup final defeats, the latter by 30-20 to Christians when he scored the whole gamut in a 15-point haul.

He played for Munster schools, was a trialist for the Irish schools, and captained the Irish youths. He worked in Frank Hogan's Audi garage one summer while also playing Gaelic football for Limerick minors. "Frank got a raw deal," he recalls, laughing, "but I made sure Frank's car was always clean."

Three years in the IRFU academy under Stephen Aboud and Liam Hennessy were other vital, formative factors; so too reknowned fitness expert Giles Warrington. "Garryowen was also a really good learning curve. Philip Danaher was a really good coach and I felt Garryowen was a club where the coaching helped players to progress." It was there, too, that he met Keane.

"I wish I was like him in some ways. He's genuine, he's smart, he's honest, he means well for you," says Staunton, who also admits: "He's able to read me. He can slam me and get away with it, whereas with other people I'd say 'what are you saying that for?' It's the manner in which he does it."

With so much frustrated energy to burn, it was Keane who made Staunton channel it into becoming a very accomplished goalkicker. He's also brushed up on his defensive game. "In fairness to Declan Kidney he's really pushed me to get my defensive play and my tackling right, as a full back especially, through videos and training. It's been tough, but rewarding."

It was in his first season with Garryowen, three years ago, that the childhood dream which will be fulfilled today became more realistic. "Senior rugby isn't that bad, I thought. I'm only 18 here and I can still cope. Later in the year I was called in for a fitness test with Woody, and the last time I saw him I was on the East Terrace with Brian O'Driscoll and Leo Cullen after an under-21 match (in which he ran England ragged) watching Ireland play against England and here I was. Reality struck, 'hold on now, no more dreaming' and then came the tour to Australia."

Still, you'd have got long odds on Staunton making his Irish debut so early in the season and at full back. In truth, he wouldn't be but for the advent of the Celtic League, which afforded Kidney a chance to give Staunton a run in the team, and were Dominic Crotty not sidelined Staunton would most probably have been confined to last quarter cameos in the European Cup. Instead he's started six games at full back, appeared in another two and hence was well enough placed when doubts arose about Dempsey.

The odds would theoretically have been even longer on Staunton making his debut not only as a converted full back but as something of a safety-first, percentage player, who has impressed with his concentration. Can this really be Jeremy?

"It's a great position if you're going forward. The thing that I've learned this year is positional play in defence and the basics, so that if the ball comes in behind you make sure, first option, safety and find your touch, find the roof of the stand basically. It's conservative. Play it in their half." Eh?

"You know me, if I want to have a go, I'll have a go. But I've learnt that it's one thing getting caught at outhalf, if you get caught at full back you're on your own. In fairness it's what Dominic and Girvan, and all good full backs, do so well: clear their lines."

Whether or not it entirely fulfills him as a player, it'll do for now, and after only nine games there for Munster, he's learning about full back play all the time. Whatever happens today, and with Staunton anything is possible, it might be another teasing taste of things to come pending Dempsey's return.

But that first cap should help him relax a little. "Up until now I've always felt I've had to prove myself."

Hence, for all the many representative honours and wins, ask him to pick the highlight of his career, and, as of last Wednesday he said: "9.30a.m., November 7th, 2001." At last, finally, it's about to get even better.