NATIONAL HURLING LEAGUE:Lar Corbett is keenly aware of the passing seasons as he strives to repeat the success of a first senior season in blue and gold crowned with All-Ireland glory

IN THURLES they have gable murals for past hurlers that are as bold and vivid as the images of patriots and loyalists decorating the streetscapes of Belfast. Thurles has a celebrated GAA lineage, from the founding meeting in Hayes' Hotel to the more famous chapters of the Munster hurling championship played out in Semple Stadium, to Sarsfields, the local club whose past luminaries include Jimmy Doyle and Mickey Byrne and Tony Wall, men whose youth and vivacity are preserved in the murals.

Tradition and nostalgia are powerful forces in the culture of Gaelic games, but they can be dangerous too. Thurles may hold a special place in hurling lore, but it is a modern Irish town too, sweeping forward and full of its own distractions, and it has only celebrated one county title in the past 30 years. For the game to prosper, it will always need hard and harder work.

"That is true, of course it is," nods Lar Corbett. "There are people that don't have any interest and that is fine. But it does help that the tradition is there in the town and the hurling does help to bring people together in its own way. I suppose you would have been aware of what Thurles players in the past had achieved, but there was no real contact with them. You would have heard the stories. Like, we lost four county finals in a row from 2000. We went close, but could never get across the line. We had to keep at it until we broke the mould."

It is hard to think of Lar Corbett as a survivor of Tipperary hurling, but that is what he has become.

When we meet in the Anner hotel, his movement across the carpeted foyer mirrors his onfield form, swift and alert. He is courteous and in a hurry because his work, as an electrician, has taken him outside town for the week and the afternoon is crammed with jobs awaiting completion. So he makes short work of a shepherd's pie and toys with the idea that he has become a Tipperary veteran. The thought seems ridiculous for an athlete who is still only 26. But like most players who have had a sustained period playing at an elite level, Corbett is keenly aware of the passing seasons.

"Everyone who is playing knows it: you have to enjoy the few years that you get," he says solemnly.

"In another while, it will be time for us to step aside and we will be the supporters watching the younger fellas coming through. And that is the way it goes. I don't think you can dwell on it too much."

It is hard to know sometimes if immediate sporting success is a gift or a curse. Lar Corbett had no choice. His ascension to the Tipperary senior team was sudden and successful, when Nicky English saw something he liked in this gangly forward with good hands and the lightning five-yard burst.

Corbett had been overlooked as a minor and was taken aback by the phone call in the autumn of 2000 requesting him to show up for a South East League game. Jack Bergin may have been the emissary, but Corbett cannot honestly remember.

It seems unbelievable that eight years have passed since.

The timing was uncanny. Less than a year after walking into the Tipperary dressingroom for the first time, Lar Corbett had a Munster medal and an All-Ireland medal. Tipp had won just three titles in 30 years: Corbett had joined a fairly select group of county hurlers.

He turned 20 just weeks before the 2001 All-Ireland final, when he struck 0-2 against Galway and acquitted himself well. His youth and relative inexperience was shielded by the fact that Tipperary had the original wunderkind in Eoin Kelly, the Mullinahone sensation who had advertised his potential from his very early teens.

Lar Corbett was different; quieter and watchful, capable of flamboyant, memorable scores and also capable of drifting out of the action. But he could catch and he could strike, and when he ran he made defenders look like statues. English substituted him in every match, but never dropped him. When Corbett thinks back to that landmark first season, he reckons he did enough to survive and no more.

"The call came out of the blue. I was okay in the club championship that year, but I was bad in the county final. I thought myself I was only average all that year. But I wasn't fazed by the thought of playing with Tipperary. I just got on with it.

"Not getting a run underage was probably a benefit too because I was that bit older and I knew this was my chance. I was never bothered about not making minor teams because I felt I might have been good enough for the panel, but not the team.

"As the years went on, I did start to come into my own a small bit, but not at minor level, no. In the championship that summer I felt I played more bad matches than good matches, but they stuck with me. They gave me the chance. I couldn't honestly say I did well in any of those games.

"Then, when the All-Ireland final came around, things worked out all right. I was lucky enough to be brought out to the wing and I was delighted to be there. And things went all right - for a change."

He won a clean sweep that year - South East League, Oireachtas, National League, Munster and All-Ireland championships. It was a supreme season to end a decade of frustration for Tipperary. As an emotional Nicky English said in the dressingroom at Croke Park, "If you keep knocking your head against the wall, something is going to give".

Corbett had an even temperament, but as the celebrations took off around Tipperary and he shook a thousand hands in the following days, he presumed he would probably get to feature in more All-Ireland finals.

"Now, this is my eighth year and I still have nothing more than I had after my first year with Tipperary."

What happened? Everything. Nothing. English went. Cork got their act together. Waterford became Munster champions. Galway and Clare performed guerrilla raids here and there.

Tipperary went through a panicky period of managerial appointments and dismissals, with Michael Doyle and Ken Hogan and Babs Keating all trying to kick-start the county during summers defined by black-and-amber dominance. Through all this, Corbett battled with his own body. Apparently weak hamstrings ruined three full years as he went through a depressing cycle of injury, specialists, recovery and breakdown.

He felt as though he had turned a corner on a damp championship day against Clare in 2005, when he nailed a typically bold goal in the first few minutes of the match and then set Micheál Webster up for another. He was lining himself up for another crack at Davy Fitzgerald's goal when the hamstring went again.

There were voices of complaint coming from the crowd that day, from Tipperary people tired of hearing more about Lar Corbett than seeing him. Sarsfields won the county championship that autumn for the first time since 1974 and although Corbett played, he felt halfway hollow about the experience as he managed just six training sessions.

He was advised to quit and turned to athletics specialists in desperation, finding a saviour in Gary Ryan, the former sprinter, and, eventually, through constant stretching and sprinting, he began to recover.

Last year was his most consistent season since his very first summer, when he fired 0-3 against Cork in a qualifying match in Semple Stadium in a 2-16 to 1-18 victory for Tipperary and posted 1-2 against Wexford in Tipperary's dramatic quarter-final exit in Croke Park. It was a campaign that marked Babs Keating's last stand and the first turbulent summer in the extraordinary career trajectory of Eoin Kelly. It was Corbett whom Keating publicly thanked for declaring that Tipperary had a united dressingroom in the days before the Cork match and it was Corbett that led the way during that tight and unlucky defeat to Wexford.

"A player has to get himself right," he says now. "Once the confidence is there, things run smoothly no matter who is running the team. You can't depend on a manager to do things for you. I had those hamstring problems for a few years. I always had the same view and I always put in the effort, but every time I ran, they were giving me hassle. So I have to stretch every day and mind myself.

"I am lucky enough to have a yard or two and that probably contributed to it. But look, we have no excuses for these past few years. We have underachieved. And you can't blame anyone but the players for that. I would be the first to stand up myself and say I have underperformed in the Tipp jersey.

But I am not going to look back on that with disappointment. I just want to try and change it. Last year, I think there was too much read into the Cork game. All we did was work Cork up that day. Both teams were through anyhow. If it was knock-out, that game would have been different.

"Now, the team played well as a unit, but still. We were unlucky against Wexford and things ended on a low. That is the way it has been for us for the past few years, losing in quarter-finals. It is heartbreaking. July is when hurling starts, it is when teams come to the top. And it is very easy to blame management. But you have to point the finger at yourself. Because I feel the players are there. Tipperary is a good hurling county."

Now, it is early spring and so far the signs have been encouraging for Tipperary. Liam Sheedy has been a bright and calm presence in his first months as manager, Eoin Kelly is back posting supernova scores and there was something warming about the unlikely run of Loughmore-Castleiney in the county and Munster club championship.

Corbett shakes his head at the series of great reflex saves that Limerick's young goalkeeper Dave Bulfin made to deny him at least two goals in their recent league meeting. But he is happy to be out there, creating chances. Even in the thrilling days of 2001, he learned never to get too high or too low.

"You have to stay even, to believe in yourself. There will be some days it goes for you and some days it doesn't. But we are working hard and training is brilliant. Liam is after freshening it all up and we just want to see what we can do."

When Lar Corbett remembers his teenage days in Thurles, he can list five or six hurlers around his age group whose games he admired. "I don't like naming names, but they were definitely good enough and were never lucky enough to get the break."

He might have been in their shoes now. Corbett had that glimmer that caught English's eye, but as he muses now: "If I hadn't been called into the Tipperary set-up, I would have just kept on playing with Sarsfields. If things don't work out, they don't work out. You have to accept it."

But he doesn't really mean that. Lar Corbett was too stubborn to accept that the first year was the brightest and to leave it at that. Those hamstrung years that followed gave him every reason to quit, but he has not done that and now, in his eighth year as a Tipperary senior hurler, he is happy to be back at square one.

"Things take you by surprise," he says as he prepares to leave. "I see younger lads coming onto the panel now and I remember being like them and playing in an All-Ireland. The years don't be long going. You'd just be hoping that you might get a shot at another one."