League days can sometimes be instructive. On a billowy afternoon in Nowlan Park, the Kilkenny boys huddled tight in the draughty old dressing-rooms at half-time and mused over the 10-point deficit they had conceded to Tipperary.

This from a team that had comfortably dispatched Wexford (1-16 to 1-12) on the previous Sunday and who looked set to purr through the early spring formalities. Team manager Brian Cody urged them to adhere to the game plan, to avoid the temptation to seek goals, to take such opportunities only if they came wrapped in shiny invitations.

The home team advanced with a slow-burning, hypnotic sense of purpose over the last, darkening half hour and hit the showers on the back of a scoreline that read; Kilkenny 3-14 Tipperary 1-17.

Even for a bloodless day in March, it was enough to quicken the pulse of the home folk.

But if that show of authority represented something of a statement, it also required an explanation. Kilkenny, for all the sequinned riches they possessed, had spluttered fitfully in attack over the previous 12 months. In a summer dominated by the youthful surge of Waterford and the spell of wretched luck and stray words which unhinged Clare, Kilkenny tip-toed their way through business, winning yet another Leinster title on an incredibly muted afternoon.

Yet even that day, they struggled; it took a couple of outrageously pragmatic DJ Carey strikes to turn the game against an Offaly bunch that looked keen to be back at home again. Yet when the two teams met again, somewhat improbably, in the All-Ireland final that September, the contrast was illuminating; Kilkenny still looked unsettled in attack while Offaly were hurling on a different plane.

Kevin Fennelly, who was then managing Kilkenny, had, during his tenure, gamely sought for a proven ball-winner to fill the pivotal full-forward slot and numerous hopefuls auditioned for the role on a rotating basis but something always jarred. The flow never quite came.

Hence, when the dust settled and Cody took up the reins, Henry Shefflin's name began appearing on team sheets and the obvious temptation was to attribute the new dynamism existent in the front lines to his presence. To neutrals observing from a distance, the whole thing read predictably; Kilkenny, searching for a definitive direction, had simply cut another gemstone, a new fulcrum for the attack.

As a team they have posted fairly impressive scores on muddy fields; 2-15 against Laois at the beginning of the league, 1-15 in the semi-final against Galway when a goal at the death robbed them of at least a draw.

Shefflin had assumed free-taking duties against Laois, cracking over 0-8 and even though DJ Carey returned, they let him at it.

"It was no big thing," says Cody, "it was just that Henry started out taking them and DJ was quite happy to let it remain that way when he came back. He has been striking the ball well for us."

So Shefflin has been whistling his way to eye-catching tallies throughout the calm season, usually good for an average of five frees and a couple of pops from play. The portents were that Kilkenny had unearthed another hero for their latest silver era.

Yet the mention of such starry ideas is enough to make Cody bristle. The last thing he needs is a series of fawning sketches depicting Shefflin as the latest saviour of Kilkenny hurling, a place where any more than 12 months without the McCarthy Cup provokes waves of gloom.

"Right now, Henry is a skilful player who hits the ball well and can win possession for us. He has undeniably progressed very well over the league but I mean, he has yet to play a championship game and is as such untested. Henry is a quiet, level-headed lad with absolutely no illusions about himself and I have no doubt he has the ability to make it as a top-level hurler. But he is young and needs time to do that. He is still developing," says Cody.

Anyway, it wasn't as though Cody and a few other Kilkenny past masters mixed a few potions together at midnight and commanded young Shefflin to fall from the skies, hurley in hand. As a youngster in Ballyhale, he had long been earmarked as one to watch. The local Shamrocks club is in many ways emblematic of Kilkenny hurling, regularly turning out players of spellbinding craft in a parish of maybe 300 souls.

Shefflin cut his teeth in the midst of a bewilderingly strong underage renaissance. By 1997, he had established himself as a key influence on a glittering county minor team which many feel under-performed as it fell to Clare in the All-Ireland semi-final.

That same year, Ballyhale had scalped the county in the Roinn A championships at under-14, under-16 and under-18 level. Shefflin himself caused a stir with an hour of lone ingenuity in the under-18 final against James Stephens. That year was pivotal for Shamrocks, who had experienced a devastating slump at senior level. As it stands now, Shefflin's stature has given blossom to a host of outstanding Ballyhale youngsters, such as James "Charlie" Fitzpatrick, a teenager with a rare intuition for the sport.

Shefflin is of proven hurling stock. His father, Henry Snr, hurled usefully for the club and his two older brothers, Tommy and John, were underage inter-county stars. Although there was never any sense of predestination about Henry Jnr's fledgling career, the trajectory he cut was certainly very smooth, and after advancing though the underage structure, he was introduced to intermediate hurling last year. His elevation to senior status, therefore, was no great surprise.

"He'd have been fairly well known alright, he had a good career as a minor," agrees former warhorse Christy Heffernan.

"He's a good, big lad who'll probably fill out when he has a few pints of Smithwicks. He has a lot of good attributes - quickness, skill, hits the ball well - but there isn't a lot expected of him this year. I think people will be happy if he holds his own.

"My own view is that he has been shifted about positionally a bit too much this winter, that he needs more time to settle in the position which suits him best, full forward. But right now, he definitely has the potential to be a force for Kilkenny in the coming years and he has already given the attack an added dimension."

Shefflin's coolness in dead-ball situations has left DJ Carey free to tap into his unique creative well again and it is already recognised that he links well with Shefflin. Even at 20, the youngster seems to have given the Kilkenny attack some sort of mooring, an anchor which had been sorely absent.

Tomorrow, though, is another step into the unknown for him, even though he has known the colour-smacked stands at Croke Park as a minor. Right now, Shefflin stands on a threshold.

Kilkenny have guarded him well over the winter but in the searing days ahead, he'll have to stand alone on occasions. And around the county, there'll be no great surprise or hoopla when he does.

Breeding naturals is, after all, what they do in that part of the world.