A pair of related themes run like intertwined patterns through the conversation.

One is the future, the other is the past. If Reale will happily talk about the former, about how he's been looking forward all season to the 10th of June, he's not so keen to waste his breath on the years behind. That's understandable. After all, he is a Limerick hurler.

A brief statistical diversion will suffice to colour in the background. Since making his full championship debut against Wexford in the 2001 All Ireland quarter-final, Reale has missed only one fixture, an injury he picked up against Laois two years ago ruling him out of the subsequent All Ireland qualifier against Galway at the Gaelic Grounds. That's 19 matches he's started and 12 he's lost, the 2005 Munster quarterfinal extra-time defeat by Tipperary included. The opposition for the five games in which he's finished on the winning side? Kerry, Antrim, Laois, Offaly and Dublin. That Reale isn't receiving treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder must constitute some form of mild miracle.

Go on anyway, Damien. Tell us which of the defeats was the most painful, if you don't mind (and yes, we know you do). He reflects for a moment.

"Two years ago against Tipp in Thurles. The drawn game.

Five points up with 15 minutes to go. Even though we needed Paul O'Grady's point to draw it, that was one we threw away.

"We've been narrowly beaten so often. Just on the wrong side of the result in so many matches. A lot of our supporters have been asking why we can't go the extra step.

It's a question we've had to ask ourselves too. Like, every year we're back training in November and we put in a massive effort, but things don't seem to go for us on the big day. But look, it's 2007.

You could go on about the years gone by till the cows come home, but you have to look to the future. A positive frame of mind. The 10th of July. That's what we've been focusing on since the start of the year."

A positive frame of mind:

its importance was one legacy bequeathed to Reale by Stephen McDonagh and TJ Ryan, his mentors and former colleagues in the Limerick full-back line. The revelation that McDonagh was the man the teenage Reale admired most on the county's team of the 1990s comes as no surprise, for the McDonagh mould was the one they used to create Reale.

Two resilient and bloodyminded corner-backs, both light on their feet, both hardwired to attack the sliotar rather than stand off and play the percentages from behind their marker's back. "'Play your own game' was the best piece of advice Stephen gave me. That was a great thing to hear out of him."

In the eyes of McDonagh and Ryan, Reale's status as Limerick's most reliable and effective player of recent years is unimpeachable.

McDonagh compares him to Wayne Sherlock, lauds his "brilliant hands" and points to his exceptional speed to the ground ball. Ryan recalls a journey they shared to training one night when Reale expressed his hopes of progressing to a position further out the field. "Put those notions out of your head, " the effronted Ryan told him.

"You'll be wearing the number two jersey for the next 10 or 15 years." Incidentally, both McDonagh and Ryan have in the past been vocal - and public - in their condemnation of the lack of determination and dedication to the cause shown by certain members of the county's golden generation of under-21s upon their ascent to senior ranks. Reale, it need hardly be added, was entirely exempt from their criticism.

Dave Keane, coach of the treble-winning All Ireland under-21 outfit, adds that Reale has been by some distance the most successful of his alumni. Press Keane and he'll pick out two memories of Reale from those rainbowstriped years.

One is from the first All Ireland final, against Wexford, of a ball Reale cleared off the goal-line after spotting the danger as it developed and zooming across from his corner in his fire brigade in time to avert the blaze. The other is from one of the Munster championship clashes with Cork, who were leading by a point late on when Keane switched Reale from cornerback to wing-back. Reale promptly did exactly what Keane hoped he'd do, sallying upfield and driving over a point. Off his weaker left side too. Keane laughs at the good of it.

Not that Reale is inclined to luxuriate in past success any more than he is to wallow in past failure. He is, he says smiling, "sick and tired talking of the under-21s at this stage". Just as a matter of interest, has anyone ever asked him whether he reckons Limerick might have been better off from a longterm perspective had they won one All Ireland under-21 title rather than three of them in succession? Nobody has, it transpires. In any case, he knows what his answer would have been.

"Any All Ireland medal you get in Limerick is welcome.

You don't hear of Cork and Kilkenny turning down All Irelands. Had we had the same team in the fourth year that we had in the earlier years, we'd have tried to go and win a fourth All Ireland in a row." Talking of three-in-arow under-21 teams, he notes by way of an afterthought that the Tipperary of Nicky English and Pat Fox also won three in a row - "and it took them years to win a senior All Ireland afterwards". Reale never harboured any illusions that his group would shortcircuit the learning process.

His intercounty senior initiation took place as the under-21 fairytale was reaching its middle chapters.

Reale's championship bow occurred against Cork at Pairc Ui Chaoimh when he came on for Clem Smith in the closing stages of the 2001 provincial quarter-final against Cork. He subsequently replaced Brian Geary in the semi-final against Waterford and McDonagh at half-time in the final against Tipperary. For the All Ireland quarter-final, they gave him the number five jersey and left him to it. "A couple of minutes, then a few more minutes, then half an hour, then a full match. It wasn't a bad way to learn."

In the light of his success in confining Eoin Kelly to limited rations in 2005, a year that Reale was selected on the Munster championship All Star team, the decision of Joe McKenna's management not to switch him over onto Kelly in last year's quarter-final evoked many a raised eyebrow. The word afterwards was that Reale had been going badly in training. That can be argued over, for he'd been pleased with his league form and had been singled out as man of the match by Tony Considine in the Irish Examiner following the semifinal victory against Clare.

Yet in the event, he accepts, maybe he was better off being left where he was against Tipp.

"On the day, no corner-back could have played Eoin Kelly.

If you pop the ball in front of that man, he'll put it over. But it wasn't so much Eoin Kelly who beat us that day, it was Tipperary's half-back line. All the great ball they gave him."

Great ball on a day from the past and a match that no longer concerns Reale. Over, done with, irrelevant. "The past is gone. You can only turn out on the 10th of June and put it right."

Last year, he points out, Richie Bennis and his selectors were "rushed in" after the Cusack Park trimming by Clare. This year they had the time and room during the league to indulge in experiments, draw conclusions and take decisions at their leisure.

With Bruree's James O'Brien failing to make the first XV, appointing Reale - popular, articulate, ambitious - as captain was one of their easier decisions.

His past is what it is. His future begins at 2pm today.