Leinster SFC final Laois v DublinJoe Higgins owes his presence in the Leinster final to several factors, including an innovative knee surgeon in Colorado, writes Ian O'Riordan

In the week before the Leinster football final Joe Higgins is rising at 6.30 in the morning. He throws his training gear into a bag and grabs a quick bite. If there's still time he says goodbye to his partner and two kids and then drives his van out the road from his home in Laois towards Nenagh.

Business is brisk. It's only been three months since himself and Ken Brennan went it alone. Higgins and Brennan, Electrical Contractors. Normally they work as close to home as possible but this week they're fitting out new houses in Nenagh.

By five in the evening he's heading back toward O'Moore Park in Portlaoise for training. If there's time he might stop home for another quick bite - or else check in on the house he's building in his home area of Laois, The Swan. Usually he heads straight to training.

By 7pm Higgins and the rest of the Laois players are already sweating. Mick O'Dwyer is standing in the middle of O'Moore Park, urging them to dig deeper. That's still the only kind of training O'Dwyer knows. They later play a 20-minute practice match and you can feel every hit from the sideline. It's almost nine by the time they're done, at which point Higgins is asked if he'd mind doing an interview.

He's been going non-stop all day. He's thinking about Jack and Kevin, his seven-and-a-half-year-old twins, and other things too. He's just got engaged. He looks tired. He's still only 26 years old. Still, he stands there patiently and answers every question about tomorrow's meeting with Dublin as if it were all part of the deal.

This is the game that's bringing 82,000 people into Croke Park, a record attendance for a provincial final, and the game that has reminded everyone about the big bucks going to the GAA, and the loose change going to the players. This is the game that O'Dwyer had in mind this week when he talked about introducing financial rewards, the game that makes the kind of commitment Higgins is making almost seem nonsensical.

Yet commitment is not a word Higgins volunteers even once. To him it's nonsensical not to appreciate the privilege of being a Laois footballer, especially after all he's been through. It is an exhausting time of the year, but days like Sunday are everything he's worked for since first tasting All-Ireland success with the Laois minors in 1997.

"It's a hard time of the year," he says, "because you're under pressure the whole time. But you know as well you only have so long as an intercounty footballer. I'm going to give it everything I have in that time.

"I try not to let the work suffer, but sometimes it does. I'm lucky that I have a good partner there in Ken, and he tends to take a lot of the flak at this time of the year. And he's still playing with his club as well. But if I get another three years of football it would be great."

Few players have a fuller appreciation of success and failure as Higgins. Two years ago he earned an All Star after his faultless performances at corner back, in the process helping Laois collect their first Leinster title since 1946. That was the game that finally transformed all the underage achievement in the county into a senior triumph.

That was also just a year after Meath had ended their previous championship run with an 11-point defeat on their home turf.

"I think a lot of lads left the field (O'Moore Park) against Meath in 2002 with a bad feeling. I know I left that day with my head down, thinking to myself that I'd have another five years of this, just coming out and being beaten by other teams in Leinster.

"That it turned around the following year was unbelievable, from where we stood against Meath that day, to beating teams like Meath and Dublin. I also think it's a great achievement to make the final three years in a row. But we've still only won the one.

"So if we lose to Dublin it will be very disappointing. No one wants to miss their chance in the final, so we're definitely well up for the game. I think we're definitely more positive than last year. Maybe we were a little lackadaisical going in against Westmeath last year. But it was a new scene for us, having won the year before. I think this time round we've seen the two sides of the coin, and know what it's like to lose."

Higgins is then reminded about the extra incentive he must surely be carrying into Sunday's game. It's still less than a year since he was carried off the Croke Park pitch in agony, just as Laois were about to relinquish their title to Westmeath. His worst fears were soon realised when a scan on his left knee confirmed the dreaded cruciate ligament tear.

That led him on an extraordinary journey of recovery, which included timely interventions by a car salesman from Laois living in Colorado, a knee surgeon who specialises in skiing injuries, and an unknown soul whose donated body part now has Higgins playing as well as ever.

Seán Doran, originally from Graiguecullen, witnessed the injury while watching television at an Irish bar in Denver. He had heard about Dr Verploeg from the nearby ski resort of Steamboat Springs, and within a few weeks Higgins found himself in his clinic undergoing innovative surgery designed to get injured skiers back on the slopes. Normally, cruciate surgery involves removing some of the hamstring ligament and stitching that into the knee. Dr Verploeg prefers to use ligament from a cadaver - a dead person who has donated body parts for medical purposes.

"I'm delighted I took that route," says Higgins. "I haven't really had a bother with the knee since. At the start it was still a little sore, and I was finding it a little harder to train on. Just falling down on the ground, and sitting back on your heels was a very difficult thing to do. I fell a few times at training and pressure on the knee like that was sore.

"But I just don't think about it anymore. It came right ahead of the Offaly game. I go up for balls and I go into the challenges the same way. If it's going to go again it will go. There's no use in worrying about it. But it's been proven a very successful operation. Everyone in Steamboat Springs, from taxi drivers to barmen, seems to have had the same operation."

The donor has remained anonymous.

"Yeah, I often wonder who owned it. I tend to be jumping a bit higher at the moment, so I don't know what that means."

The recovery was still time-consuming, requiring daily visits to the gym and physio. He couldn't resume work for six months.

"In a way that gave me the final push to go out on my own. It gave me a bit of time to set up things," he remarks.

His own return to form has reflected that of the entire Laois team. Last year was a setback, but having edged past Offaly in the quarter-final, they hammered 0-21 past Kildare and thereby reinstated themselves as favourites for the Leinster title.

The improvements between the Offaly and Kildare matches had the whole country talking. Higgins does his best to pinpoint a reason, but it seems like one of those days that simply defy explanation.

"We hadn't had a game in a good while beforehand, and I think that does count for a lot. Offaly had the game going in. In 2003 we'd also gone very well in the league, and were having top-class games right up to the championship.

"But last year the injuries just piled up. Against Westmeath we should have wrapped it up the first day. The second day I got injured, and then Beano (McDonald) got injured. Tom Kelly had a broken finger and Darren Rooney had a broken thumb. Things have gone well this year, and I think everyone is very hungry for it again.

"The media were also putting us down after the Offaly game. And I think that did get to a lot of lads. You could actually see the guys that were criticised came out and put in a huge performance."

So players do actually read papers?

"Ah, sure you have to. You're told not to, but sure everyone does, don't they?"

The papers have been saying Laois have never beaten Dublin in a Leinster final. But they did beat them two years ago in the semi-final, and that's the game that undoubtedly bears greater relevance for Sunday.

"You always go out thinking you can win," he recalls, "but there are always some doubts there. Especially as Dublin had always got the better of us in years gone by. So we grew in confidence as the game went on, and for the last 10 or 20 minutes we knew it was ours for the taking."

He'll start tomorrow in his tried and trusted position of left corner back. He'll fight the urge to burst forward but when the urge wins he's likely to finish it off with a point. In so many ways Higgins has made the corner-back position his own.

"It's a lot about reading the game," he says. "You can't just stick to your man, and you can't just start pulling and dragging. The way I look at it, I need to get out in front and win the ball. You have to take a chance sometimes, because if you have a ball coming towards you, breaking between two players, then luck is going to play a part too. Some people think corner back is the worst place to play, but I don't mind it too much."

In other words, he appreciates it. That's Joe Higgins for you.