"I thought Diarmuid O'Sullivan [would take it], " he said in the live commentary. "Cork don't really have a forward to take penalties."

Duignan was speaking for the majority of Croke Park, but in Ballyhea they took that remark as further proof of how Neil Ronan had been marginalised for nearly a decade. One night, Noel Hanley, the club's own version of Sylvie Linnane, stood between the posts as Ronan practised his penalties. The first shot missed Hanley's ear by a millimetre and at that Hanley walked off and told the rest of his goal-line team practice was over . . . he didn't want anyone to be killed by one of Ronan's bullets.

Last Sunday Clinton Hennessy was similarly fortunate that he only conceded a goal.

With that shot, Neil Ronan was unleashing nine seasons of frustration.

It's that long now since Ronan broken onto the Cork team as a prodigious 19-yearold, yet up to a month ago he'd only played the full 70 minutes three times in championship. Though Ronan would joke with reporters last weekend that "I'd want to be nailing down a starting place after nine years of trying", his journey has been no laughing matter.

No one could have foreseen it would be such a struggle. At 15 he came on in the senior county semi-final to score the winning point from the corner flag. At St Colman's he won Hartys and All Irelands, rivalling Joe Deane as the best colleges player the county had produced in the '90s. In Waterford IT, he won a Fitzgibbon playing in the same full-forward line as Henry Shefflin and Declan Browne . . . and was considered that team's go-to man.

On the eve of the 1999 championship, Cork played Clare behind closed doors in Pairc Ui Chaoimh. Brian Lohan had won three of the previous four full-back All Stars, yet when a selector asked Ronan if he'd feel intimidated about going up against the Clareman, Ronan laughed and duly scored 1-5. When a month later Jimmy BarryMurphy went with six rookies against Waterford, Ronan personified his decision "to pick a team of hurlers".

Brian Corcoran thinks back to that Waterford game and the opening minutes.

Ronan won his first ball, turned and shot. It drifted an inch wide. Another few inches to the other side, Corcoran mulls, and Ronan's career and confidence could have gone in a completely different direction.

It's a sound thesis. Go back through every other game that summer of '99 when two kids from north Cork were rookies and neither is playing particularly better than the other. Then one of them is taken off; the other justifies being kept on by scoring a point. Neil Ronan could so easily have been Ben O'Connor. It's hard to believe that once Ben O'Connor could have been Neil Ronan.

In Tom Cashman's year in charge, Ronan transformed a league game against Waterford from midfield yet the following week against Tipperary was hauled off after 25 minutes. In 2002 Ronan blitzed Clarinbridge in the build up to their All-Ireland club final with a display John McIntyre raved about, yet would play no part in Cork's first two championship games until Bertie Og Murphy suddenly parachuted him in to start at midfield against Galway. Donal O'Grady completely froze him out in 2003 and when O'Connor was lifting the Liam McCarthy Cup the following September, Ronan was in Australia on a year's sabbatical.

He returned as a man on a mission. In Cork's opening league game he scored seven points from play to leave Padjoe Whelehan a dead coach walking, and would score a further 19 points from play in that league. Come championship, it was the same old story. In the first round against Waterford Ronan under instruction sacrificed his own game to create space for Deane. His reward was to be replaced at half-time.

It's a classic case of coaches' self-fulfiling prophesy. An opinion is formed about a player, often based on a previous coach's, and everything the player does then confirms that bias. Before Australia, Ronan was seen as too flaky and brittle. Then, after his explosive cameos in the 2005 Munster final and All-Ireland semi-final, he was labelled as a super sub.

Even when Ronan did break back onto the starting 15 in last year's All-Ireland quarter-final, his place was insecure. It was Ronan who made way for Cathal Naughton in the semi-final against Waterford having scored three points from play.

He had just sustained a hand injury but the selectors didn't know that when they called him ashore. In the All-Ireland final he was the first player substituted. Just when he thought he was back in, they pulled him back out.

Among various management teams, Ronan was perceived to shoot on sight too often. Which was fine enough but the criticism was hardly mentioned to the player himself. Ronan though retained his admirers, Corcoran among them.

"Neil can do things that no one else can do. In games he'll be hitting balls over from the corner flag. Before training even starts, he'll be out ahead of everyone, on the 21, trying to hit a spot on the crossbar.

He's probably been our most versatile forward, which probably backfired for him. John [Allen] would often have felt that if anyone was struggling, Neil could come straight in and there was no need for a whole series of changes.

"His biggest problem over the years was that he was looking to the sideline. When he'd get the ball, he'd feel he had to do something special with it. If that went wide it made it look even worse and Neil then could get very hard on himself. This year if things aren't happening for him, he knows Gerald [McCarthy] will leave him there."

It's a policy which is working. In recent years Cork have struggled to score goals; Joe Deane has now gone 19 games without finding the net.

Ronan in his last four games has pounced for four goals, and 11 points from play. At 27, like Dan Shanahan, his career has been re-launched.

For all the knocks he's taken, enough of the kid who laughed at Lohan's name always remained. And in a way he feels lucky, not unlucky. His brother Darren made his debut with Cork at 19 and was discarded by the time he was 21. His father Neil was one of the best corner backs in the county and never played for Cork. His uncle Phil Ryan, a hardy and classy wing back, was also overlooked by the county.

And then there was his grand uncle, Mick Ryan. After playing for Dublin in the 1955 Leinster championship, Cork secured his transfer back to his home county for whom he scored 2-3 in the 1956 Munster semi-final against Waterford. He was dropped for the Munster final and never played for Cork again.

Last week Ryan's grand nephew scored a couple of goals himself against Waterford but there's no fear of him not playing today. Cork realise they need Neil Ronan as much as he's always needed them. Finally.