Some profiles make it his 23rd but they're wrong. Rob Kearney is 20 but you'd forgive some for thinking that he's older. He's packed more into his life in the past seven months than others in his position have managed in an entire career. And by his position we don't mean full-back, his favourite, or wing, his current spot. No, we mean the position that had been foisted upon him by a little segment of Dublin society. Kearney was, and forever will be, a former Leinster schools cup superstar.

There's one every year and back in the spring of 2004, Kearney was the man. Or more accurately, the boy. A full-back on the Clongowes Wood senior cup team that lost to Blackrock in the final that March, Kearney put in some eye-catching performances at full-back and had all the auld codgers, you know the type, plotting his path to the very top.

Every year it happens but few actually walk the path that has been paved out in words and dreams for them.

The same can be said of Kearney in a sense. He hasn't walked the path either. He's flown it. He doesn't remember it as he was in the inner sanctums of Lansdowne Road at the time but during the break of that schools cup final, Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy strolled onto the pitch sheepishly at the behest of the man with the microphone and gave a little wave to their respective Alma Maters.

There's a kind of irony there now but when you thumb through those schools superstars, the last two to have embraced the hype and skipped a few rungs on the traditional route to the top, are O'Driscoll and D'Arcy.

The last two before Kearney we mean, who would have been adjusting his shoelaces and tucking his shirt into his shorts while the current Irish centre combination were taking the plaudits outside. Now, he's something close to being their equal. Something very close.

It's been some year for Kearney no matter what way you come at it. Last August he was starting into his second year in the Leinster Academy but an invitation to train with the senior team at Old Belvedere winged itself his way. He wasn't sure at the time how the opportunity came about but the gaps have been filled in by David Knox since. Brad Harrington, one of Leinster's fitness people, went to Knox and told him about a guy who was "wasting away" at a lower level. Like the kid in Maths class who doesn't concentrate because it's all too easy. Being Australian and all that goes with it, Michael Cheika and Knox overrode the system, to some protestations, and invited Kearney to train with the big boys. He hasn't been back to the academy.

"I don't remember too much about those few days training, " says Kearney, "although I do remember Cheika giving me a hard time over the first few days. It was nothing too much, just picking on me a little bit more than others but it was a good thing because I really had to earn his respect. When the lads were appointed as coaches in May it was a worry because it meant I had to make myself known to two new people. But I think 99 per cent of Australians had this youth philosophy which is brilliant as well. Had it been someone else I could still be banging away in the academy."

He still could be but it would have been such a waste. Those training days in August soon evolved into first-team starts at the outset of the competitive season and in advance of Saturday's Heineken Cup quarter-final against Toulouse, Kearney has 18 appearances to his name out of the 20 games Leinster have played this season. He has seven tries to his name, too, but one of his biggest memories from the season is still his competitive Celtic League debut against the Ospreys in Swansea.

"Ten seconds into the game my kick was charged down and bang, we're seven points down, " remembers Kearney.

"I'll remember that forever.

The first thing that went through my head was this could not be happening. But then I went under the posts and the lads told me to forget about it, to get over it. I took one good, high ball after and that cancelled it out. From there, I could feel myself growing with every game."

Looking on from the outside, Kearney appeared to genuinely come of age in Leinster's Heineken Cup defeat to Bourgoin at Stade Pierre Rajon. The atmosphere both in the stands and on the pitch was pretty intense that afternoon and a young winger could easily go missing if he was that way inclined. To Kearney's credit, though, he stood up impressively, scoring a try and tackling like a demon in a breathless game.

It showed exactly what kind of stuff he was made of.

"The Heineken Cup brings a lot more pressure with it and it was probably after that Bourgoin game that I felt truly comfortable at this level, " the player says. "I felt for the first time that I was properly expressing myself on the field.

I felt confident in what I was trying to do but the main point in all of that was that we lost the game and immediately afterwards my own performance meant nothing at all to me."

Talking to Kearney, it's clear to see these past few months haven't gone to the head even though he probably has more reason than most to apply the foot pump to the ego. He's well and truly grounded, a fact that you could have picked up from Knox's widespread praise of the player this season. There's no way the Australian would have thought aloud, to use but one example, that Kearney should have started in the Six Nations for Ireland this season if he felt the player himself would get carried away with the suggestion.

Getting ahead of himself isn't in his make-up, something which shows when he's asked what parts of his game need development.

"You have to improve on everything, " he says immediately. "I'm not near perfect at any one thing, some things more than others. Some of my defence this year I've been a bit disappointed with and kicking at times hasn't been as good as it should be. I can pick something from any game all year that I haven't been happy with."

True, his defence may need some fine tuning but you have to remember that this is Kearney's first time ever playing on the wing. At school, he was at full-back and even last week in the A game against England, Kearney donned the number 15 shirt. With Denis Hickie now fully back from injury, and Gordon D'Arcy, Brian O'Driscoll, Shane Horgan and Girvan Dempsey also available for selection, one of all those and Kearney will be on the bench but he's philosophical about it.

"It's a fantastic group of players we have in the backline and already and over the next few years, I will learn an awful lot from them. If I do get a start against Toulouse, I'll be delighted but if I don't I'll take it on the chin and get on with it. Everything has happened to me so quickly and that's very unusual. That's not trying to blow my own trumpet.

I didn't, and I don't think anyone else did, suspect how quick I would come through and right now being in contention is just great."

He's in contention now but you can almost guarantee he'll be on the pitch at Le Stadium at some point on Saturday. From there, his whole career stretches out in front of him, much like all the auld codgers predicted, but he's already managed the difficult trick of establishing himself and that could be half the battle.

But that's the future, today's he's just 20 and he'll take it handy, have dinner with his family and go about preparing himself for training in the morning. There'll be no high jinks. He's come so far, so soon and he's not going to let it slip.

HEINEKEN CUP QUARTER-FINAL PREVIEW TOULOUSE v LEINSTER Le Stadium, 3.00 Referee D Pearson (Eng) Live, RTE Two, 2.30; Sky Sports 1, 12.00 Thursday was their "rst full day back together as a team since January's victory over Bath. They could probably have done with name tags to ease the process but as Michael Cheika has insisted all through this dull Six Nations campaign, there's nothing he or anyone can do about the structure of the European season and moaning about it won't do anybody any good. You simply have to get on with things.

The great pity in all of this, no matter how keen you are to sideline the disruption, is that Leinster are arguably the one side in the last eight of the Heineken Cup that this break has hindered the most.

Against Bath, Leinster were spellbinding in everything they attempted and it's one of those few sporting performances you'd watch again and again on video if you got the chance. The link play between Brian O'Driscoll, Gordon D'Arcy, Denis Hickie and Shane Horgan was genuine world class, and even the forwards were tough and evasive on an afternoon which gave a perfect example of how Cheika and David Knox want the game of rugby to be played.

But it had taken them half a season to get their team playing like that and they really only began to click when the international players were able to put down a decent sequence of games in a row. Before that they were patchy, if wonderful to watch, and that has to be the worry heading into Saturday's game. Had this game taken place on 28 January, you'd have put a sneaky tenner on Leinster. As it is, you'd be extremely reluctant to part with a euro this time out.

It's by no means a done deal, though, as Toulouse are in the same boat as Leinster to some extent.

They like to play a loose, ball-inhand, extremely unorthodox style of rugby, one we presume that takes a while to click after a long break. The big advantage Guy Noves's side have is that they have been doing all this a lot longer than Leinster and are likely to slip back into the groove an awful lot quicker.

While Leinster have everybody of importance available to them, Toulouse will be de"nitely be without Gareth Thomas, Benoit Baby and Isitola Maka, while Clement Poitrenaud, Aidan McCullen and William Servat are struggling for in advance of the game.

The bad news is that Yannick Jauzion played against Perpignan last weekend and should be close to match "t following Friday's hardfought victory over Agen. The mid"eld battle of wits between O'Driscoll and D'Arcy, and Jauzion and Florian Fritz, will be the most interesting contest, but we'll also have to keep an eye on Leinster's leaky defence and their propensity to give away needless penalties. This one could be anything from an errorridden horror to a genuine masterpiece but you'd have to fancy Toulouse in either.