For seven seasons up until this one, McCormack has neither been outcast nor first-team regular at three Irish provinces, but somewhere in between.

With Connacht, he learned his trade and made his mistakes, at Ulster he flitted in and out of the starting line-up with disconcerting frequency, while his first year at Leinster saw him carry as much water as ball. But now, with his 30th birthday peeping up over the horizon early next year, it genuinely looks as though he's nailed the regular spot he's always craved.

Of course you can always talk too soon . . .

and McCormack is certainly not taking anything for granted . . . but last week against Gloucester, and more particularly, against Italian tight-head Carlos Nieto, he looked as though he belonged in the Heineken Cup. There was even a brief second-half cameo as a centre, where he ran a brilliant line to dissect the Gloucester defence late in the second half. It truly appears that he's been uncorked at just the right time.

"There are exceptions to every rule, " says McCormack, "but you do appear to see older props in starting positions these days. Not only that, they also seem to be playing their best rugby in their 30s. It's hard to put a finger on it but I suppose the biggest factor is that in the front row, you never stop learning. Every time you take the field you come up against somebody in the opposing front row who has a different technique, a different way of coming at you. Then you have teams who have their specific ways of scrummaging as a unit. Obviously the longer you've been around, the more you know and the more you're able to cope with."

His own experience log is pretty extensive by now. Before James Downey's brief sojourn at Munster at the start of the season, McCormack had been feted as the only player in the history of Irish rugby to line out for three of the four provinces.

It was an odd little achievement, and it all started at Connacht, like it has for so many Irish strays. He arrived in Galway from UCD at the behest of Steph Nel, a 23year-old determined to make a go of things. "Connacht was a good place to start out for a number of reasons, " he says. "You're playing in a place where there's slightly less pressure and while you're playing against quality teams in the Celtic League week in, week out, the European Shield, as it was called when I was there, is a good place to learn rugby, particularly front-row rugby. In the Shield we played those middle-level French teams regularly and I promise you, I learned a thing or two in those games."

After two seasons out west, Alan Solomons brought him to Ulster. The change in cultural surroundings didn't bother him one iota and he immediately settled into Belfast life. He was injured for most of his first season at Ravenhill, but in his second term he managed to become a Heineken Cup regular, and he was even called into the Ireland training squad on a couple of occasions. It was round about then that Leinster offered to bring him home, and although Ulster also tabled a three-year contract for his services, his decision was guided by the heart. "Listen, I'm a Dublin boy and it's always been my dream to play with Leinster, " he says. "I played for them at underage level and when I got the offer to come back I had to take it. I was well aware that things were going well at Ulster, and that they'd been good to me, but I guess the chance to move back to Dublin just proved too strong."

He may have been back in familiar surroundings last season but he struggled to make an impression with his home province. The splinters on his backside from bench-warming were hardly given enough time to extract themselves such was the brevity of the majority of his excursions from the holding pen. "Last year was frustrating, " he says, "but it was frustrating because of my own form, not because I was being left out. I played a couple of games at the start of the season and I knew I wasn't at the peak of my game. Things just didn't go well but you have to give huge credit to Reggie Corrigan and Will Green. A lot of people were writing Reggie, in particular, off at the start of last season but I think he put in one of his best seasons in a good few years. It was frustrating for me but I had no excuses. I wasn't playing well and when I did get an opportunity, I was probably over-anxious."

The summer, including an enjoyable tour to the US and Canada with the Ireland 'A' squad, focused his mind. One of the elements of the Michael Cheika and David Knox era at Leinster that excites him is that everybody feels as though they're playing in a meritocracy. Perform poorly, like last season, and you won't be within an ass's roar of a start; do the business on the park, though, and you'll rarely be hauled off it.

"I've started this season well, " says McCormack, "and as a result I've managed to keep my starting spot. It's the kind of thing that really fosters a great working environment, and overall I've been hugely impressed with Michael and David. The guys leave no stone unturned in their approach. The preparation we put in for each match has impressed me . . . the way we prepare ourselves, preview the opposition and then review things afterwards. We concentrate a lot on game knowledge and game management, it's something that Michael mentions a lot. I think it's fair to say that we've all improved in that area over the past 12 months."

Despite the marked improvements at the province in the last year, the worn Leinster stereotypes haven't gone away.

The province are still labelled the 'softies' of Irish rugby . . . mostly by the media, admittedly . . . and that barb is principally targeted at their forwards. It must be odd for McCormack because on his journey around the country, he's fallen into a number of different categories. At Connacht, he and his teammates would have possessed a 'never-say-die' attitude and up in Belfast he would have been labelled as a 'stubborn' Ulster forward. Overnight, however, simply because he's back in the capital, McCormack's capabilities are called into question.

"I put the whole labelling thing down to the different styles of play of the provinces, " he says. "Leinster are a flair team with flair players and we have to play to those strengths. Things were a little different in Connacht and Ulster, their strengths were in different areas and they played to that. At Leinster, we know our job is to lay the platform for our backs to perform and that's what we try to do."

He's expecting a busy game against Edinburgh today . . . "they like to pull you from touchline to touchline, " he says . . . and playing against an all-international front row is something he's particularly looking forward to. He wasn't named in Ireland's 32-man squad for the November internationals during the week, but an injury or two and he won't be far off joining the gang out in Killiney. Most players would think their international hopes were over as they turned from 29 to 30, but not McCormack.

As a prop, the passing of time will probably make him a more valuable asset.