AT times last Saturday night it was as if he was never away. In the first half he was again the Donegal forward causing most trouble, forcing Billy Morgan to call his new full-back Dave Coughlan ashore; then, as the game entered injury time, he was back in some bother with a ref, picking up a second yellow card for what he calls a "forward's tackle". Brendan Devenney could tell there was something different though.

About him, about Donegal.

"The one great thing in Cork the other night, we went five down and there was no sense of panic. There was a feeling there that we had so many good players on the pitch we were still going to win the game. A few years ago, if a team came at us in the first 15 minutes like Cork did, Donegal would not have won. This time we kept plugging away."

Devenney personified the honesty of that effort. In the second half, after Donegal went ahead, he dropped deep to shore up the back and leave Kevin McMenamin more space and scope upfront. The tackle that sealed his dismissal might have stemmed from a lapse of awareness ("I didn't realise [James] Masters had been put off after [Nicholas] Murphy [was]; any poor tackle from us was asking for trouble") but also from an eagerness to do the right thing. It was his fourth attempted tackle in as many minutes. In years gone by, he admits, such an ethic would not have been as apparent. "When you're young and a corner forward, all you want to do is take everyone on and score. Now all I want is for the team to win."

When the same two sides met in the All Ireland quarter-final last August, the robust self-confidence of last Saturday was not there. Neither was Devenney. The two were linked. When Cork unleashed their onslaught that day, Donegal were left to rue the kind of chances and experience Devenney would have taken and provided. Devenney in turn missed Donegal as much as they missed him. The previous week, he had gone to Enniskillen to see their win over Fermanagh but he couldn't take himself to Croke Park.

"When the lads played Down in the [Ulster] first round, I was in Salou with my wife, watching it on TV. It was tough enough, but I was like, 'Well, you've made up your mind; live with it.' But by the time they played Fermanagh and Cork I was going off my head. Because I had never experienced a summer like it before. I had never not being there, you know? My father had said it to me all year. 'You'll miss it something awful, you should play.'

But you think you've lived enough yourself to know what's right or wrong for you and I didn't listen to him; I had my mind made up. But he was right."

Deep down, Devenney knows he himself wasn't wrong either. Aside from his work as a sales rep, he was setting up a bar, shop and café in Newtowncunningham. Portadown were offering the chance to play UEFA Cup soccer. Moreover, he had been "pissed off" with Gaelic football for a while.

There were years when Donegal made a run through the backdoor which led to Croke Park but Clones and its stifling mentality and shadow was always there.

After Armagh blew them off Croke Park in the 2004 Ulster final, there was no scenic day-trip to Castlebar or Newbridge. Instead they were immediately pitted against Fermanagh in Clones. The spirit and nature of the game made even the old ground wince and made Devenney crack. After being taunted and pushed and dragged all day, Devenney pushed back. First an opponent, prompting Joe McQuillan to show him a second yellow card. Then he shoved McQuillan, three times. He faced a 12-month ban, yet even when the support and representation from Brian McEniff saw it reduced by half, Devenney's disillusionment with Ulster football remained.

"You go to Clones and it's pure defensive and you can feel the hatred and the mouthing and the bullshit, " he said when the suspension expired. "You get some stuff from other teams but there's a friendlier vibe to it. I would love to play in Connacht, Leinster or Munster. It's so much more enjoyable."

Such candour was a refreshing departure from the usual macho, self-serving soundbites that typify the province but there was no escaping Ulster. In 2005, Donegal's provincial championship was once again terminated by Armagh, and their summer by Cavan. Devenney scored 1-4 in both defeats but his torment was visible. When he finally beat Paul Hearty in the closing minutes of the Ulster quarter-final replay, he let out a roar, a display of emotion which seemed excessive for what was effectively an academic, garbage-time goal. Devenney claims that the game was still alive and his roar was a measure of how much he wanted to atone for the previous day "when everybody played well except me; if I had been anywhere near myself, we would have won", but that howl appeared that of a footballer at the end of his tether.

The approach of opponents wasn't his only source of frustration. So was Donegal's. For all his liaisons with soccer, Devenney was respected among teammates for his dedication, "the kind of fella, " as Michael Hegarty observed, "that wouldn't socialise or eat carvery two months before a championship match".

Such an attitude wasn't prevalent among the panel. Although the panel's reputation for partying was greatly exaggerated, Devenney claims the environment was too lax, and players too willing to exploit the leeway afforded to them.

"When you've trained under a lot of people between club, county, country and province, you know when set-ups are together or not. The way I play my sport, I have no problem training or practising five or six days a week. People say 'That's wild commitment.' I love that side of things. But it has to be total. Management have to be a step ahead; they can't leave you wondering 'What's next?' We'd do weights early in the year but then there'd be no follow-up. With Ulster being as competitive as it was, we might as well have been wasting our time." It had to be all or nothing. In 2006 Devenney decided it would be nothing.

Soccer was the natural fallback. "In Donegal, " explains Devenney, "you're either a GAA man playing soccer or a soccer man playing GAA, but I was straight down the middle." Several sides were offering contracts but Portadown manager Ronnie McFall made an offer he couldn't refuse - "Those other clubs aren't playing in the UEFA Cup." Right there, Devenney sought and signed the form. It was an adventure that included a 1-1 draw in Lithuania against FBK Kaunas, but over the winter Devenney gave McFall notice that he was going back to Gaelic and playing Gaelic only. After McFall found a replacement, Devenney played his last game for Portadown three days after Christmas. After the summer, it was always a question of when.

Brian McIver welcomed him back.

Even though they had never worked together before, the pair had shared a mutual understanding and respect. Within weeks of succeeding McEniff, McIver had met Devenney to see if he was serious about his announced retirement and Devenney appreciated it when McIver accepted he was. Throughout last year, he also kept hearing back from old colleagues that McIver was providing the kind of standards and environment Devenney had always craved.

"The set-up is a lot tighter now, " he says, now that he's experiencing it for himself. "Everything's planned in advance. If we're going away for a day, it's there in black and white. Your weights programme is assessed and measured. It's geared for success."

And so, he's back to it all: the banter with the likes of Roper and Hegarty and the young lads, and in time, the hatred of Clones. He's fine with that. The ethos of the game is something he'll leave to the Pat Spillanes and Colm O'Rourkes until he maybe joins them some day in the studio. For now, he has to accept and enjoy football as it is. At 31, he's wiser and more equipped to deal with the hits and the digs and the jibes.

The group itself is more seasoned. The maturity was evident in the way they beat Armagh in the McKenna Cup a fortnight ago, and Cork last week, two teams who had beaten them last summer. Today they play Mayo, then twice in the coming month, Tyrone; two of the best three teams in the country and further measures of their progress. Maybe in the long run it was best that himself and Kevin Cassidy weren't there last summer.

Rory Kavanagh and Michael Doherty grew in Devenney's absence, and Barry Dunnion, in Cassidy's. Now they're established players, leaders even, while Devenney and Cassidy have an appreciation for the game again.

"Sometimes you need that break, " says Devenney. "I don't regret last year because it's giving me a pep up for this year. It's got to the stage where this team have been there so long, I'm sick of us not winning things. Gaelic is so full on, winning that next ball is often the fine line between success and defeat, and I missed last summer giving them that hand which might have made all the difference. It's all about getting some silverware now."

Maybe he had been a GAA man playing soccer all along.