At the start of a week in which Irish athletics faces a difficult examination in the European Championships at Budapest, the chequered career of Niall Bruton is again in focus.

Bruton will be one of the first Irish athletes in action tomorrow when he goes in the heats of the men's 1,500 metres, and his performance may set the standard for the squad over the ensuing five days.

Marcus O'Sullivan said recently of Bruton: "He has more natural talent than any Irish miler in my lifetime." From a man who has run 100 sub four-minute miles, that is a remarkable testimony.

Yet the fact remains that for all his ability, the Dubliner has seldom made it count in the major international championships.

The notable exception was in the World Student Games in 1991 when it all came together for him in a couple of eventful days and he brought up the first leg of a superb Irish double in the 1,500 metres.

Sonia O'Sullivan, like Bruton, a graduate of Villanova University, was Ireland's other winner on that occasion, but from that substantial base their careers diverged sharply in the following years.

Nobody ever seriously doubted either his strength or his commitment. And at a time when successful championship competition has much to do with the ability to quicken off the final bend, his pace is not in question.

It is true that injury problems, not yet finished, disrupted his career and that it was his misfortune to surface at a time when the growing influence of African athletes produced a vast explosion in the standards of middle-distance running.

Yet it does not fully explain the enigma of a man who produced some gifted performances in the preliminaries of the big championships, only to fail when the tempo increased in the final rounds.

That was inexplicable given the way he had handled the pressures of the Student Games and later, in some impressive successes in the Wannamaker mile and the British championships.

There are those who believe that his problems are rooted in an American system which favours the consistent athlete but frequently penalises those who lose momentum at critical stages of their careers.

During his years in America, Bruton was part of one of the biggest athletics stables there and at times when he struggled, he often appeared to be lost in the backwash of other more successful colleagues.

On his return to Dublin, he worked with Eamonn Coghlan, an alliance which lasted until this year. Now he has rejoined his old coach, Peter McDermott, and the hope is that between them they will have rekindled enough of the old fire to enable him to perform to pedigree in Hungary.

The signs are scarcely encouraging for it was only in the approach to the deadline for entries for Budapest that he rediscovered enough of his old form to break the qualifying standard for the 1,500 metres.

That time of three minutes 38.74 seconds was more than three seconds outside his careerbest figures, hardly the kind of statistic to cause ripples among the elite of European middle-distance running.

And yet hope persists that somehow the urgency of the challenge will extract a suitable response and that the man who has promised so much without ever delivering in recent years will hold one last surprise for his supporters.