As success stories go John Kelly's doesn't exactly belong in the overnight category. He's 25 now, but so sharp has his progression been in the last year that it wouldn't be stretching things to suggest he has a worthy shot at inclusion in the Irish senior/A squad of 44 or thereabouts to be announced on Monday.

Not that the player himself thinks along those lines. "That's the first I've heard of it," he admits, before suggesting that he might "look out for it" on Monday.

Yet, when Declan Kidney and Michael Bradley were asked to nominate the unluckiest player to miss out on the Irish touring party for Australia last summer, both chose Kelly.

Ironically, were Kelly to miss out again, it might in part be due to Kidney and Bradley not allowing the player to specialise in one position - most probably outside centre. It is from this position that Kelly came roaring out of the blocks this season; scoring three tries in his first four starts there.

An intelligent player, with an honest, hard-working ethic, and strong defensively, he is arguably a more potent runner from outside centre, while not quite having the blinding pace of an international winger.

Kelly formed a particularly potent partnership with Mike Mulllins, with his support play and eye for a gap enabling him to become joint leading try scorer in the interprovincials. But in seven subsequent games on the wing, Kelly has scored only one try. Alas, Munster are comparatively well catered for at midfield. Mike Mullins, Killian Keane, Cian Mahony and latterly Jason Holland have all been used there this season. By comparison the province has a relative shortage of wings, as Anthony Horgan and John O'Neill have been injury prone.

Hence, while Kelly has probably been one of the first names on Kidney's team sheet, in ways he has perhaps become a victim of his own versatility, akin to the speedy Peter McKenna in Leinster.

Kelly admits to having a preference for centre, and it frustrates him at times. "If you have two players at second centre and a gap on the wing, the one who can play on the wing is going to get picked there. Maybe I'd be better off if I was just a second centre, and fight it out with that person. "It can be frustrating being versatile, but it has its bonuses too. I'm quite happy to play on the wing, and I'm happy just to get a game." Indeed, one of the benefits is that, along with John Langford, Kelly has been one of only two everpresents for Munster this season, and he has missed only one of their last 20 games, last season's quarterfinal defeat at Colomiers through injury.

Ask him why he's been a late developer, and he says: "I don't know really. I suppose it's a combination of things. "I played my earlier (under-age) rugby in Con as opposed to school, which doesn't really put you in the spotlight. My first two years at under-20 were also spent at Con before I played for two years at UCC, and I moved around from out-half to the three-quarter line, so I was 23 or so when I got into the Munster squad."

Both his family and school, Rochestown, were more Gaelic orientated, and it was only through some cousins offering the alternative of under-age rugby at Constitution, and his parents seeing it as "a good way of getting the kids out of the house" that he chanced upon rugby. "My cousin brought me up to under-eight training one day and I took to it immediately and haven't looked back since."

Even so, Kelly gives the impression that until the advent of a professional contract, rugby was primarily fun. While studying civil engineering, and later taking a higher diploma in software computers at UCC, Kelly delayed pre-season training for as long as possible while taking off to the US for three months each summer.

"It was a student thing to do, and a good laugh. You'd go out most nights. The idea was to try and earn some money, but I very rarely did." While at college, even when noticing how keen fellow student Dominic Crotty was on pursuing a professional rugby career, "I wasn't thinking of rugby in that way. I wasn't even thinking of playing for Munster, just playing for College and then playing senior first division rugby with Con. Basically I was playing to enjoy my rugby and to a certain extent I still am."

Even so, exposure to full-time rugby was, he admits, "an eye-opener" and he's now regarded as a dedicated pro. While doing a correspondence course in accountancy, "just to keep the brain ticking over", professionalism has widened his ambit.

"I'm trying to improve three things: strength, speed and my flexibility, because I had a few hamstring injuries and the like last season and on the wing you tend to come up against big strong types, or really speedy wingers."

Self-deprecatingly, he says that people wouldn't describe him as a flashy player. "I'd be known for my work ethic. I'm lucky in that I've always had natural stamina, and the endurance stuff is never too much trouble for me."

"Amazing" is the adjective he applies in describing Con's nine-game winning run last season and "incredible" for Munster's 11-match winning sequence this term. "It feels like you can't lose. We've so much confidence even when Colomiers scored a try after three minutes, there was no feeling of panic. It was like we were just going to go on and win it."

The same was true at 21-9 down to Saracens at half time, though Kelly concedes that Saracens are "definitely the fastest team we've played. When they upped a gear they were so quick, and they cut through us a number of times. This match is crucial. It's a vital game for us to win, to put them away."

It's funny when he looks back on his first training session, and being nervously in awe of Peter Clohessy, Mick Galwey and co, for he admits to being fairly laid-back.

"I try to enjoy the present. Whatever happens in the future will take care of itself. It wouldn't be the end of my life if I didn't win an Irish cap but at the same time I'd love it if it did happen. I never expected to even be playing for Munster."