These are the days of summer butterflies, counties which dot the sporting landscape for no more than an afternoon on any one season and then disappear before the real tremors have even begun.

Tomorrow, Waterford, winless and wedged at the bottom of Division Two B, host league kingpins Cork, a team which has already merited a significant number of tenuous nods from pundits eyeing the big picture. To neutrals, this is a sporting fixture devoid of even the slightest semblance of intrigue, an obligatory afterthought for one of the great traditional powers in Munster.

Yet on a humid Thursday evening, Michael O'Brien finds himself hopping into a car after work, beating the rush from Shannon, spinning by Limerick to pick up Dave Whelan and whizzing down to Dungarvan for a 7.30 training session. It's a trip he endeavours to take three times a week. Thing is, there is always this sense that the effort is finite, that for the most part summer Sundays will be spent filing through turnstiles with the rest of the punters.

"Well, it's hard for me to turn around and say, `yeah, we'll take Cork on Sunday'. But neither are we going out with this defeatist attitude. There is absolutely no pressure on us and it suits, so we're just determined to give it a good crack, try and take what chances come our way."

O'Brien is from the city and was drawn to football after Nick Brophy stoked up the bones of decent team around the Ballybeg estate in the early eighties. His enthusiasm spawned the St Saviour's club, who steadily advanced through the junior tables until they established county senior status in 1986. O'Brien was swept along, trotting out at the age of 17 for the county final the following year and running with the Waterford senior team by the beginning of the next decade.

Although he is captain this year, there is no heady talk of revolution. Waterford football demands patience and a reasoned outlook.

"I'm 28 now. I took a break to Christmas and was wondering would I go back at all, turning it over. There are times it's a slog, that it seems thankless but I mean, chances are I won't be doing this when I'm 33 or 34. It keeps me fit and I love playing. I figured I may as well keep going while I had a bit to offer and if someone better comes along to take my place, well and good."

But when he stares down all those days of defeat, there is a slight wistfulness common to most inter-county athletes whose times are peppered with maybe occasions.

In 1993, they fell by a couple of points to a Tipperary side who featured in that year's Munster final. The next summer, he hightailed it around the east coast of the States, catching the last of the great Charlton fireworks at the World Cup. The next year, he was back in the side as Cork ended Waterford's championship with 10 points to spare.

"But we had a man sent off quite early on and ran them well for a while. We competed, you know. And if we just go down by a couple of points the next day, everyone'll say, `ah, didn't they do great'." But we'll still be out. There won't be any inferiority complex the next day, at least not on my part."

But already, the majority Waterford folk are anticipating the onset of another march by the hurlers.

"It's understandable," shrugs O'Brien. "Look, I'll be there to cheer them on. There is no division or antipathy there. Obviously, in relation to the football, you tend to lose good dual players to the hurling. But that'll always be there." So if their turn arrives and vanishes over two breathless halves tomorrow, no regrets?

"I'll get a buzz out of going out and facing the Cork lads with a crowd in Dungarvan. Who wouldn't? You give it your all and then, who knows?"