It's late afternoon on a muggy Tuesday in the Curragh and a call comes through for a member of the Cavalry Corps.

"Anthony Rainbow?" echoes the guy on phone duty, his voice quivering with incredulity. "Sure, he won't be here. You'll not get him now. He'll have left for training, I'm sure. There's a bit of a match on this weekend, you know. But I'll take a look for him."

All around Kildare, from the slow-burning, unchanging rural heartland to the burgeoning satellite towns, there bubbles a giddy anticipation which borders on the triumphant. The Lilywhite belief, always a fragile thing, seems to have been fastened to steel girders in the past few months.

"The support we get from the people in this county is nothing short of fantastic. You just know they will be there, however things are going," acknowledges Rainbow, resting up in his home.

"People are very passionate about the game here. You always get the support from the rural areas but even though the bigger towns have people from all around the country commuting into Dublin, they eventually end up following us as well. We are fortunate in that sense."

His own pedigree is that of an undiluted local. His grandfather served in the Curragh, raised a family there and watched his son enter the Army also. Army life was in Anthony's blood. Stepping along the same line always seemed a natural progression, if not an inevitability.

"It's nice to keep the Rainbow tradition going, I suppose. At the back of my mind, I could always see myself in the Curragh but I didn't just head there immediately after school."

Instead, he finished the Leaving, kicked his heels for the summer and took a bus for Athlone RTC in September. Like most, he found himself as engrossed with the incidental aspects of college life as with academic pursuits.

"We had a really good football team that year, 1993. Lads like Enon Gavin from Roscommon were there along with a lot of good club players. We beat Queen's when they had the likes of James McCartan and Anthony Tohill and we were good enough to take the Sigerson, but Limerick caught us."

And a yearning for the regimental life caught him. By 1994, he was playing football in the Inter-Company Championships, playing with the Curragh team. Bringing it all back home.

"I suppose I was about eight when I started playing Gaelic, with Curragh primary school. My uncle Joe played minor for Kildare so there was a bit of the game in me, maybe.

"I grew up with some fine footballers. We won an All-Ireland with the Patrician brothers when I was in secondary and I started playing minor myself after that."

It was as a half-back with the county under-21 team that he caught Mick O'Dwyer's eye in 1990. Rainbow played on a side which lost an All-Ireland semi-final to Galway. The Kerry man was coaching the underage side then also, eager to drive fresh options on towards the senior set-up. Rainbow was called up while still a teenager, learning his trade at training and on the bench.

"Mick O'Dwyer is obviously a legend, you know, one of the greatest trainers of all time, and for him to come into Kildare gave the whole thing a buzz. You couldn't help but be in awe of someone like that. He has a massive influence in the way he talks you through your game and with his training technique."

O'Dwyer fired Rainbow into a League encounter against Kerry in Newbridge in the winter of 1991. His name - a headline writer's dream - quickly became household. Now, O'Dwyer rates the Curragh man as irreplaceable. "I'm just glad to be playing on the team. He tried to make a forward out of me back in '95. Paul Curran marked me the day Dublin beat us. It was enjoyable playing up there, but I'd say I'll spend most of my days in the backs."

Too often, he has traded his jersey for the soaking sky blue of his opponent's, the Dublin player offering brief, consoling words before traipsing off Croke Park and thinking of the next round.

"Nineteen ninety two and 1993 were especially disappointing, because I feel we had the ability to beat Dublin. Things just didn't click."

They never seemed to for Kildare in crunch matches. Quickly, they were told their nerve was wrapped in gossamer. Too easily torched to cinders.

"It wasn't ever a fair reputation and I think people saw it for what it was last year against Meath. We have never lacked heart, but sometimes it just doesn't go your way. Every team needs a bit of luck."

But whatever luck is floating around Croke Park is certain to be trampled over on Sunday. Both teams would prefer to depend on their own resources for this one.

"There is no doubt it's going to be a tough 70 minutes. Whenever Meath and ourselves play, things are always that bit hotter, even in the League. We are hugely motivated for this final and reckon we have the savvy to push ourselves through."

Although Rainbow is extremely familiar with most of the Meath attackers, he hasn't encountered Stephen Dillon before. "Yeah, he came in for Jimmy McGuinness late. I don't know much about it, just saw him score a goal early on in the championship. But if he's on that team, he's sure to be dangerous."

Back at Rainbow's work base, his colleague returns from a futile mission to locate him. "He's away. He'll probably be resting before the match. But if you want to know about Kildare football . . ."

Within seconds he is off on a tangent which touches on winters spent journeying to far-flung League grounds, summer regrets and a new, definite sense of destiny.

"This is Kildare's year," he tells you. "Mark it down. But sure don't be listening to me. I'm just the man on the street."