Late developer leaves College pals behind.

Galway's David Forde, who captained the winning Fitzgibbon team the year after, shared a house with him, while his first cousin Jimmy had been in a number of teams before that. But he couldn't be bothered. "He never held a hurl," jokes Ger Cunningham, who was involved with UL teams throughout that spell. "I knew there was a Comerford guy from Kilkenny here who was a good hurler but he hadn't broken on to the Kilkenny team. You're baffled looking back on it now thinking that he never hit a ball. We never saw him."

My, haven't times changed. A year after finishing college he had a league medal, soon added a senior All-Ireland, and in last year's final emerged as an heroic match-winner when Kilkenny's needs were greatest. Now he is captain, aiming to lift the McCarthy Cup as part of an unforgettable three-in-a-row. How do you account for the comparatively eccentric version that went before? "He's just too lazy," one of his college pals explained. "I remember David Forde saying Martin was big into the cards," recalls Cunningham, "theirs was the house where they played the cards."

UL needn't feel excessively victimised because they weren't the only place to miss out. At St Kieran's College, Comerford failed to make the senior team, overlooked for the 1996 All-Ireland winning side. "His mother felt (his brother) Andy did not do well enough in school because of the hurling," recalls Denis Philpott, who coached the '96 team. "I met him in the hall in Kieran's and asked him about hurling and he said, 'you better ring my mother'."

Not figuring at St Kieran's put paid to his county minor prospects and he only made the Kilkenny U-21 squad after the 1999 Leinster championships; even then he didn't make the subs bench for the final against Galway. There were other issues at play. "I would say he played a lot of soccer, he was kind of anonymous in hurling terms," says another school coach at the time. "The Comerfords would have been a well-known hurling family and it was a surprise in a way that he did not focus on hurling."

In his teens he also spent four consecutive summers with his brothers, Andy and Jimmy, and father, Tim, a hurling fanatic, working on London building sites. The family had been there when Martin was born, returned home to raise their children, before Tim was forced back because of economic recession to provide for them. Andy won an All-Ireland B title in 1995 with London while working there, returning the following year to play for Kilkenny in the championship. O'Loughlin Gaels' manager Michael Nolan says it was only after minor level, when the club won a 'B' title, that Martin decided to stick to hurling, taking encouragement from increasing success on that field. The club came up from intermediate in 1996 and by 2000 they were in their first senior final, losing to Graigue-Ballycallan. A year later they were champions and he had left a big imprint on Brian Cody and his selectors, keen to invigorate the Kilkenny squad.

'Cody would have had a fierce influence, he would have seen he had something and persevered with him'

He had made the Kilkenny senior training panel by the summer of 2001 but watched the Galway match from the stand. It was a pivotal moment for both player and county and they have been part of the one journey since. "Cody would have had a fierce influence, because he would have seen he had something and persevered with him," states Murty Kennedy, a selector with the Kilkenny U-21 team that won the '99 All-Ireland, one week after the senior team lost to Cork.

Kennedy accepts they were unaware at the time of Comerford's potential. "We were keen on him to but we didn't see an awful lot of him up to that," he says. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I would have great time for Martin but no one would have visualised at that time how things would have worked out."

His personality evolved too. "He has come out of himself big time," claims John Skehan, the O'Loughlin Gaels chairman. Having had a reputation for being shy and unforceful, playing club and county hurling at the top level stripped away his inhibitions. "Ah he came out of his shell," says Kennedy, "none of them O'Loughlin lads would be too simple."

It hasn't been easy getting him to sit down to an interview - he's as slippery as an eel and, thin-framed and 6-4, looks like one too. We start with Wexford and he gingerly lists all the good things you thought you knew about Wexford and didn't want to ask. "They've had a fight down there. They've had a few arguments and this is all going to galvanise them for Sunday," he cautions. "We're preparing for a very difficult game."

Chapter and verse is quoted on how Kilkenny were stunned in 1976, '84 and '94, twice mugged by Wexford ("we're conscious of the fact that history is not on our side.") You suggest he's far too young - 25 - to be rolling back the years like that. He grins: "Well, I rang James McGarry there before I was talking to you and he filled me in. He's the historian of the set-up." He's a mix of light and earnest, flitting between the two. Words like storm, battle and tornado are tossed into the fray in deference to today's match.

In the absence of a prolonged league campaign, Kilkenny's training sessions have taken on added importance. "I know that if I'm marking Noel Hickey and I'm going full pelt and he's going full pelt and your tongue is hanging out at the end of a training session, you know that you're all set for a championship encounter. Willie O'Connor always said, 'I'm ready for Sunday because me tongue was hanging out in training there tonight.' That was Willie's way of knowing Willie was ready for action."

'They were a funny crowd, they wanted to train at six in the morning. It was savage commitment for a college team'

Going into last year's All-Ireland final, in which he would score 1-4, DJ Carey and Eddie Brennan were dazzling in training. He felt unhappy with his form and more beset by nerves than the year before. But on the day he was the star forward. Whereas in 2002 he harassed Brian Lohan and staked a reputation for hard graft, 2003 added an exciting scoring dimension to his play. Some of the scores had the stamp of class. Though he only moved to the forwards when his club were short for a match against Clara in 1999 he has proved a highly adaptable hurler.

His parents are from Gowran and Muckalee and both backgrounds lay claim to hurling ancestry. Tim's brother Andy is remembered as a stylish hurler who played for Kilkenny, while the Tullaroan Coogans are linked on the mother's side. When Andy brought home the McCarthy Cup in 2002 the family home was a place of bliss. The three boys used to play with hurls made by their uncle Paddy, a carpenter, and Nowlan Park was a short hop away; they went there to watch Kilkenny train and rob sliotars. Having the McCarthy Cup at home completed the fairytale.

It hasn't all been good news. The club lost the All-Ireland semi-final over two matches against Newtownshandrum and Martin feels six weeks spent in Australia before that cost him fitness and a sharp edge. "If I had my time again I probably wouldn't have travelled, I will always look back on it with regret. You can't wind the clock back so you just have to go on."

So, why the lack of college hurling that many hurlers rave about as a vital rite of passage? "Ah I wasn't really interested to be honest, 'twas winter hurling and 'twas very difficult, well they never stop training in Limerick as far as I can see. They were a funny crowd, they wanted to train at six in the morning and so forth so I couldn't understand how they did it to be honest, it was savage commitment for a college team. I kind of enjoyed myself down there rather than put myself in for hardship."

We're asked to mention the sponsor of his new jeep: James Farrell, Railway Garage, Castlecomer. Then he's off to face the storm.