True.

He went to college there.

He discovered how to be a hurler there, learning more in four years at WIT than he'd learned up to that in Limerick.

He married a charming young lady from Gracedieu, one Lisa Quinlan. His mother-in-law Ann is a hardcore Deise woman who went to Waterford games long before it became popular and profitable to do so. On All Star trips he's found himself gravitating towards the Waterford lads. In short, Waterford are his adopted team.

None of which will make an iota of difference today, naturally, not least because this is Moran's day too. Only one man in hurling history has played more championship matches to reach an All Ireland semifinal. When George O'Connor lined out for Wexford against Galway at the same stage of the competition in 1996, he was appearing in his 34th fixture in 17 seasons. Today Moran will be appearing in his 31st in 11 seasons (see When Sunday Comes). He has paid his way several times over.

He paid a few more cent the last time Limerick and Waterford met, at Semple Stadium on 8 July. Quiz Moran on his memories of the day and he cites the rain and the physicality and the claustrophobia, not to mention the extent to which the three games with Tipperary had, like mice in the kitchen cupboard, gnawed away at Limerick's energy rations. Not ruinously so, but enough to make a difference when the temperature was turned up in the closing quarter.

"I think the Tipp saga caught up with us a bit in the Munster final, mentally more than anything else. Drained us. It turned out to be a very intense match physically, and in the last 10 or 15 minutes maybe Waterford had that little more in reserve. To be honest, neither of us played to our ability for an hour. We cancelled each other out. But when they got their second goal the momentum swung, and when Eoin Kelly dropped back there was no space at one end of the field and the world of space at the other.

Their midfield was back on top of me. Those weren't conditions conducive to chasing a game."

Moran's own performance, considering that had there been a Hurler of the First Month of the Championship award going he'd have hosed in? For the record he reckons he stayed afloat, bearing in mind the greasy sliotar, the ubiquity of the Waterford defenders and the identity of his marker. If he wasn't on the ball very much (one shot, one point), neither was Ken McGrath. If Moran didn't arrow them over from all angles as he'd done against Tipp, he made sure McGrath didn't bomb clearances half the length of the field as he would do against Cork. He's subsequently been visited, mind, by occasional nagging thoughts to the effect that he should have taken on the Waterford defence more than he did. He answered them by telling himself that when he saw colleagues in better positions, he tried to play them in.

In doing so he did what he was there to do.

"I felt I worked terribly hard, though obviously I wasn't as prominent as I'd have liked to be. But there are days the ball just doesn't run for you, no matter how hard you try. It wasn't like I was on the ball 20 times and kept doing the wrong thing. And watching the way Ken has been performing lately you'd think, yeah, I'd gladly settle for limiting him."

Remember where Moran is coming from. Holding down the opposition centre-back, whoever that might be, was the mandate he was given at the beginning of the year. "I'm not what you might call a naturally freescoring forward, " he elaborates dryly. After that, Richie Bennis and his selectors reassured him, any scores he contributed would be a bonus.

Viewed in that light, his exploits against Tipperary . . . five points the first day, four plus the assist for Mike Fizgerald's goal in the replay and three the last day . . . equated to winning two successive National Lottery rollovers and hitting the next midweek jackpot.

He rationalises the Tipp feast days in the same way he rationalised the Waterford fast day. The ball ran for him, the opportunities presented themselves, he had a crack and over they went. As simultaneously simple and unscientific as that. None of the points could have been scored, he emphasises, had Limerick not been playing with the method they have. More purpose, more off-the-ball running, more options created, with Moran and Brian Begley breaking possession for Andrew O'Shaughnessy et al to feed off. The proof lies in the statistical pudding. Limerick are averaging 1-14 from play per game this summer, while no fewer than 12 players have contributed 0-3 or upwards from play over the course of their five outings.

"Although we're nowhere near the finished article, the mindset has changed. I know it's probably a natural thing to say coming from Limerick, but the offload is so important. We're only buying into that this year." The management, he adds, "came from the old school", but they saw that the game had changed;

the approach that was good enough to win an All Ireland 10 or 20 years ago no longer butters parsnips. "Richie and the lads are so honest, so willing to listen to players. And they've gotten it back threefold."

Ultimately, however, Limerick's resurgence has been . . .

had to be . . . all about the players. "Taking ownership of our affairs" is the phrase Moran uses. The process occurred over the course of a weekend away in Mayo in February.

Their team, they decided.

Their responsibility.

"That was a players' call. I don't think we needed any management to tell us. And we had to get past this awful blame culture that there'd been in Limerick. Players blaming the management, management blaming the county board, everyone blaming everyone else. The older guys like myself had to take a look in the mirror. The guys from the under-21 teams who weren't used to this losing culture decided it was time to grow up. No one in Limerick could say they had performed to their maximum. The mental side of things had to change. We weren't at the same level of attitude and commitment as Cork and Kilkenny. Eighty per cent of us might have been, but there was an element who weren't.

And everyone had to be."

Moran came home from Mayo convinced a flame had been lit. He and his teammates have fanned it into the county's first sustained championship run since 2001, only the second of Moran's career and one that "kind of has to" compensate for the four or five years of frustration that preceded it.

Evenings like Semple Stadium against Offaly in 2003 or Cusack Park against Clare last season have taught him to be grateful for all and any mercies. "We don't take championship victories for granted.

When you've been through the mill to the extent we have, seeing a sunny horizon is a big thing. We've been down and kicked so many times that to get any kind of a good run is huge. And we're making the most of it, because a pat on the back really is only 18 inches from a kick in the arse. We know that better than anybody."

Back to today. Back, in particular, to last month's meeting with Waterford. For all that Moran claims Limerick won't make the mistake of trying to hurl the Munster final all over again this afternoon, it's the obvious reference point.

"We went out to nullify them then. We have to take them on a bit more. A lot of us would have said afterwards that we could have hurled them differently. Today is a different match, of course it is. And Waterford, if they were to be critical, will feel that the Munster final certainly wasn't their best performance and that they have plenty in the tank."

An All Ireland semi-final, but just another game. Just another game in a summer finally and gloriously full of them for Ollie Moran.