Ken Doyle willingly agrees to talk about Kildare. As long as there's no big fuss made about it. Doyle has been moving in and out of key roles in this Kildare team during the thick and thin of the last eight years and he's never been one to cause a fuss.

It's always been a case of doing his talking out on the field, effectively and fancy-free. Take the All-Ireland semi-final two years back. Niall Buckley was struck down with injury on the eve of the game and Kildare looked no further than Doyle - himself hindered by injury that summer - to step forward. He made such an impression that he was back in the defence for the All-Ireland final.

This year has been no different. He came into the forwards against Louth and scored the stabilising point which played its part in the victory. For both games with Offaly, he started in his more accustomed berth at corner back. His damage limitation on Vinnie Claffey in the replay brought particular praise.

So now it's Dublin and Doyle is one of those players who can recall the battles from the early part of the last decade. He made his senior debut early in 1993 and the following year came on at corner forward against Dublin, chipping the final Kildare point which forced a draw. By the time they met again in 1998, Doyle was equally comfortable in either corner of the defence.

"There was a big difference in those early games of the 1990s," he says. "You're talking about a very young Kildare team coming up against an exceptional Dublin team that probably should have won more than one All-Ireland in that period. "And it did take us a long time to overcome that gap and that mental barrier; but the experience of those games did stand to us in the long run. Eventually we matured ourselves as a team and we were able to use that to our advantage to finally beat them in 1998."

Now 29, Doyle moves about the field with the speed and mobility in the white jerseys of the current Kildare squad. The back six for tomorrow's meeting come across as one of the more settled defences in the country. Doyle will start in the right corner and alongside him Ronan Quinn and Brian Lacey need no introduction. There's a similarly settled ring to John Finn, Glen Ryan and Anthony Rainbow in the line in front of them.

"You are looking at the same nucleus of the team from the middle of the 1990s. Even since 1993 or '94, the defence has been very settled. This year we have brought in some new lads, and particularly into the forward line. And in fairness to them, they've blended in very well and their performances have been improving throughout the championship.

"But the majority of this team has been together for a long while now and we do know each other very well. We feel like we have got the experience behind us now and I think the team spirit is very good there at the moment."

Doyle knows that Dublin will be a whole new ball game. The 17 points Kildare managed against Offaly will be hard to reproduce against the men in blue yet there is a quiet confidence floating around the county at the moment.

The supporters may be notorious for getting carried away and thinking about All-Irelands but right now the players can be satisfied with their form.

"Certainly we feel that the last day (in the replay against Offaly) was a good performance but I know Dublin will be another step up again from that. We'll have to improve our performance again to compete against Dublin, there's no doubt about that.

"But if you think back to three months ago, nobody was giving Kildare any great chance of beating Louth in the first round, never mind winning a Leinster championship. So I think we've made very steady progress since the league and we have improved with every game."

Returning to the All-Ireland stage would be something of a redemption for Kildare. A chance to finish off the job that was missed two years back. But Doyle insists that nobody is getting carried away.

"There's a big difference this year and we're honestly not thinking about All-Irelands this year. We know our strengths and our weaknesses and we know it will take a hell of a performance to beat Dublin, but we're honestly not looking any further beyond that at the moment.

"A lot of those Dublin players have been around for a long while as well. We know a lot of them from playing in the early 1990s and even before that as well. I think that Dublin team have themselves matured an awful lot in the last couple of years and I think it would be wrong for any county to look beyond them."

Still, the flow of white flags down North Circular Road and the quays has once again become a familiar sight this summer: "Sure, Croke Park is something we're used to. We have played a lot of games there going back to 1997. And it has become a happier hunting ground for us recently compared to previous years.

"We've certainly no fear of the occasion and no fear of Croke Park. This is our fourth time there this summer so it's becoming a bit of a routine for us by now."