HE'S drinking tea in the bar of the Park Hotel in Dungarvan prior to the evening's training session next door in Fraher Field. He has come from Castlemartyr, where he's been on an electrical contracting job for the past six or seven weeks. After training he'll go home to Stephanie and Abbie. He's 26 years old.

He has two Munster championship medals. He has a National League medal. He has an All Ireland dream. He's off to Portugal tomorrow with his teammates for a week.

("We'll train hard and we'll enjoy it.") For John Mullane, life is as sweet as ever he's known it.

The moment Paul Flynn knifed the ball over the bar to cut the gap to a point midway through the second half of the league final this afternoon fortnight, Mullane felt it in his bones that Waterford's day was nigh. The moment the final whistle sounded, he took off his shirt to swap with the nearest Kilkennyman, then reconsidered and concluded that this was one shirt that demanded to be held onto. And the moment he appeared in work in Castlemartyr on the Tuesday morning (yep, he took Monday off), the Cork lads on the job were all smiles and congratulations. Whether some of the smiles were sourced less in pleasure at Waterford's victory than at their exposure of Kilkenny's feet of clay is an item that need not bother us.

It certainly didn't bother Mullane.

Ask him to mark his performance in Thurles out of 10 and he'll give it a 6. Ask him to mark his performance during the first 60 minutes out of 10 and he'll give it a 5. He's not being falsely modest or doing himself an injustice; he'd given away a free for throwing the sliotar shortly after half-time, had had a shot for a goal saved by PJ Ryan, lost one 70-30 ball to Brian Hogan and spilled a handpass from Flynn. It was, Mullane fretted, one of those days. But it didn't have to be, his inner man insisted. "I told myself to keep at it. 'It'll come. It'll come. It'll come.'" It did come. Eight minutes from time, Hogan shanked a ground ball straight at him and Mullane levelled the match at 0-16 apiece. Four minutes later he repeated the dose, Stephen Molumphy flipping a breaking Waterford free back to him and Mullane equalising again. In the last minute of normal time he caught the puckout that led to Eoin Kelly's drop-puck point.

Heroics? No, Mullane didn't perform heroics. He did his bit, though. That was the thing.

A couple of years ago he wouldn't have done his bit, he acknowledges. A couple of years ago he wouldn't have been as patient. A couple of years ago he'd "have put the head down, given in and been ready to be taken off". But this is a different John Mullane, one who in Waterford's previous two outings wasn't on the ball as much as he'd have liked either. Still, he finished the quarter-final against Tipperary with three points beside his name and the semi-final against Cork with two. Not a feast, but no famine. Not necessarily a happy medium, but a reasonably satisfactory compromise.

"We hung in there. Against Kilkenny, against Tipp, against Cork. That's what you have to do against the top teams, because if they get a sniff that you're going to give up they'll go to town on you.

To beat them you have to keep going to the end.

Because they'll keep going till the 74th minute. I mean, in the All Ireland semi-final last year we went 15 or 20 minutes without scoring. That's not good enough either. Cork got the smell and pushed on. We came back too late."

The aftermath of the league final left Mullane's back tender with pats from members of an older generation of Waterford supporters, those who'd endured 44 years without a national title.

He appreciates where they were coming from. At the same time, he realises where he and colleagues are . . . must be . . . headed to. His two Munster medals are, ultimately, two Munster medals. "At the end of the day, they're not good enough for the people who support us and for the team we have at the moment.

We've been around the block, we've played in a lot of big matches. We're an experienced team and we're hungry to get to play on the first week in September."

A team that's been given ballast and fresh options by its new recruits. Aidan Kearney has, Mullane agrees, provided them with "a bit of zip in the full-back line", Shane Walsh is "another scoring forward" and Stephen Molumphy is "a grafter who'll wear down his opponent and hit a lot of ball . . . every team needs a Stephen Molumphy".

A goalscoring John Mullane would be an asset too; in 14 championship appearances for Waterford since his annus mirabilis of 2003, when he won an All Star after hitting 3-1 in the Munster final and 0-5 in the Nowlan Park qualifier against Wexford, he's managed only four goals . . . and Dublin, Laois and Westmeath were the opposition for three of them. He knows he can do better. He knows he must, particularly considering the good positions he's been getting into. "I should be scoring more goals, even though we're the type of team that keep banging over the points. If the goals come, they come. But if you want to win an All Ireland, you do need a couple of goals a game."

He's not the man he used to be in more ways than one. It would be amazing if he were, given all that's happened to one of hurling's handful of instantly identifiable figures during the past three years.

Being sent off in a Munster final. Missing an All Ireland semi-final through suspension. Ending up in court in a case that, needless to say, wouldn't have warranted a second glance were it not for the identity of the defendant.

Becoming a father. "I'm after maturing as a person. I've done a lot of growing up. I did a few stupid things at 21, 22. I'd like to think I've learned from my mistakes."

You're different, then? "Much different!"

One aspect of his existence, mind, hasn't changed, merely eased. The "off-the-field stuff", as he puts it. "I get annoyed with some of the rumours going around.

They're so untrue, but they kind of get to me at times. I can't go out for a few drinks but I'm supposed to have been arrested or in a fight. It's not nice. It's not as bad as it was a few years ago, but it's still ongoing. And even if I'm not out for a drink, I'm still supposed to be in trouble.

"Being an intercounty hurler, I don't have much of a social life. But when I do go out, I like a bit of privacy. I used have so many gobshites coming up to me in pubs and looking for trouble. Fellas trying to get a reaction out of me.

I took an awful lot of stick. It was hard. Not pretty. And it wasn't just me who was getting dragged in either, it was my family." [Two years ago a jury at Waterford Circuit Court found Mullane not guilty of assault during a row in the pool room of a pub on St Stephen's night 2002. His defence said he'd been the subject of "very unpleasant and outrageous goading". ] Jealousy on the part of some people? Guys trying to make a name for themselves in front of their pals?

"Maybe. I'm not sure what it was. At the end of the day I'm no different to anyone else. When the season is over I like a quiet drink. Not having people in my face."

Pity it's such an unmistakable facef "That's half the problem.

Things are easier on my family now. Especially on my mother, who had a hard couple of years. I'm not saying I was an angel. I never was an angel.

"Sometimes I think of a life without hurling. Peace. It's the life I'd have liked. Not to be recognised, keeping to yourself, no one bothering you.

But when my career is over, I know I'll miss it. Because it's your life. And I'll keep it going till my body tells me to give it up. But I'd like to think I've always looked after my body.

Just like Tony Browne. An amazing man. If there's anyone to look up to, it's him."

The Harvey Smith to the Cork supporters at the Town End in Semple Stadium following his third goal in the 2003 Munster final? "I do regret that. But at the time . . .

the fellas behind the goal, some of the stuff I heard from them just wasn't on. But no, I wouldn't do it again."

The thought of an All Ireland medal? "We had a baby girl last year. Abbie. After her, winning an All Ireland medal would be the greatest day of my life. I'd die a happy man."

And with that he takes his leave. Off into the evening sunlight, off into a contented existence, off into a future glowing with the glint of a celtic cross. Off being John Mullane.