"All we wanted for years was to get a chance to win one, and then we could smile for ever more"

John Paul O'Reilly, long-time De La Salle supporter (and not a quiet one either)

That was the thing about it. To win just one. To join Mount Sion and Ballygunner and Roanmore at the top table and be able to look them in the eye. To banish memories of the black evenings a decade ago when Mount Sion might beat them by 16 or 17 points. To stop lads from other clubs saying, after De La Salle had captured an under-12 or under-14 title, "Ah, ye might be good now but we'll have caught up with ye by the time it comes to minor."

Three weeks ago at Fraher Field they did all of that. De La Salle 0-11 Abbeyside 0-9. Founded in 1927 by Brother John Murphy, a young Kildare man based in St Stephen's school in Waterford city who saw the need for the establishment of a club to cater for the sporting needs of past pupils, De La Salle used to have a past. Now they have a past, a present, a future, a new home and silverware. They're smiling alright.

Drawing their manpower from the pool of alumni of three local schools – St Stephen's, St Declan's and De La Salle college - rather than the inhabitants of a discrete area, they're among the most curious of clubs. The panellists are not fellow parishioners. They're not brothers except in the metaphorical sense, there being no sets of siblings on the panel. To Kevin Moran, who began the year by captaining Waterford IT to Fitzgibbon Cup silverware they're "friends rather than neighbours". To the long-serving Derek McGrath, who'd be leading the attack today but for tearing the top of his hamstring the Tuesday night before the county final, they're bound by "a togetherness that geography isn't part of". They don't have parish pride. They have De La Salle pride.

The starting point for their journey? Anywhere and everywhere. The 1999 Féile na nGael Division Two triumph, which gave Moran and his contemporaries a taste for the big time. The sight of De La Salle secondary school winning successive All Ireland colleges' titles, which raised the brand's profile and associated the name with success. The second-half recovery against Ballygunner during the league phase of this year's campaign, the first time they'd beaten their neighbours in a serious match, and the momentum that accrued from it. The return of Moran, Brian Phelan and John Mullane from intercounty duty in the second week of September, bloodied but unbowed and mad for road with the club. The management of Owen Dunphy, full-back on Waterford's 1992 All Ireland under-21 winning team.

Whose idea it was that they keep half an eye on the prospect of the provincial club championship while simultaneously keeping two eyes locked on the county final is unclear, but certainly the transition from winning the latter to making a successful debut in the former, all within the space of eight days, proved rather less of an obstacle than it might have been. Brendan Fennelly, one of the De La Salle selectors, attributes it to "the nudge" the management gave the players in the week leading up to the county final.

"We felt the team had matured enough to win not just a county title but to be aiming for the Munster championship. Deep down we thought beforehand that, if things didn't go wrong, we'd win the county final, though obviously you have to be careful. But we didn't want them to lose their focus if they did win it. It so often happens, in every county. A team comes through to win their first county final, spends the week celebrating and says, 'Ah, sure we'll give the provincial championship a real shot next year.' And 100 years might pass and they don't get that chance again."

The penny dropped. De La Salle were barely on the bus back into town after beating Abbeyside when one player was heard to talk aloud about "having a right cut" at the Munster championship. The celebrations done, some of the camp followers who attended training the following Wednesday night were so struck by the businesslike nature of the proceedings that they stuck a few bob on De La Salle against Sarsfields.

In the event the new Waterford champions travelled to Páirc Uí Chaoimh on the Sunday and didn't know themselves when they got there. In contrast to the apocalyptic weather that had attended the county semi-final and final, the day was a beauty. The sun was shining. The sod was perfect, with what Kevin Moran describes as "a nice bit of dew on the top". It could have been a summer's afternoon and De La Salle hurled like it was, seeing off Sarsfields by 0-18 to 0-16. "I think we all sensed going down to Cork that we had a great chance," Moran says. "Sarsfields were in much the same position as ourselves, having won their first county title in a long time. For us it was a serious chance to reach the Munster club final."

De La Salle's odyssey has served as redemption for the survivors of the 2005 county final, their first, which ended in a one-point defeat to Ballygunner, and for nobody more so than their captain and best known player. De La Salle stumbled out of the traps that day, trailed by eight points at the end of the first quarter, hauled themselves back into the argument approaching half-time but were eventually undone by a couple of scores that would have been described as miraculous had they come from anyone other than Paul Flynn. On a scale of one to 10 for debutants meeting old hands in a county final the losers' performance merited a seven or eight, but that didn't ease the pain afterwards and it didn't prevent John Mullane pointing the finger at one of the biggest culprits. For that exercise he only had to look in the mirror.

"Oh, I blamed myself in a big way. I had a terrible final in '05. And it was a double whammy too, because if I'd played well we may have won."

Mullane carried the scar with him for three years. It healed on the night of November 9. He may not have shone the same afternoon but against Sarsfields he sparkled, landing five points and creating maybe as much again with cross-field passes to unmarked colleagues. As he's learned to do with Waterford, he does his bit.

In the words of his brother-in-law Derek McGrath he's "not as burdened as much as he used to be. He's looser, if you know what I mean. He knows there are guys around him who can get their scores too." To date this season Mullane has hit 3-23, all but a point of it from play. Only young James Quirke, the De La Salle freetaker, has managed more with 2-34, 1-28 from placed balls.

The annus mirabilis continues. De La Salle secondary school, under the guidance of McGrath and another panel member Dermot Dooley, retained their All Ireland colleges' title. Another clubman, Jason Ryan, led the Wexford footballers to the All Ireland semi-final; doing the physical work for Ryan was Mick Casey, who fulfils a similar function with today's team. Their €3.5m development at Gracedieu, which opened for business in a small way during the summer, has seen De La Salle named the Munster Council's club of the year. Today they'll travel to Semple Stadium not in hope but in confidence.

Smiling? Laughing.

emcevoy@tribune.ie