Tomorrow in Parnell Park, Dublin, the big wheel turns for Athenry and Dunloy. The AIB All-Ireland club hurling semi-final is an echo of the one which took place six years ago. In a way it signified a start for both clubs. Athenry learned from what was a shock defeat and are now defending their second All-Ireland title.

For Dunloy it was the start of something different, an eventful sequence of years which saw the Antrim club come within a whisper of becoming only the second Ulster winners of the biggest prize in club hurling.

Statistics bear icy witness to Dunloy's adventure. Two big defeats in All-Ireland finals, the failure to beat a 13-man Sarsfields in a semi-final and a one-year suspension don't on the face of it suggest much cause for anguish and remorse. But the stats don't tell the full story.

Shane Elliott, a veteran of all that happened in the 1990s, combines the roles of club goalkeeper and PRO. This unusual fusion of responsibilities allows him to monitor what happens on the field and the reactions off it. He knows his career may well be less notable for what he has won than what he has not won.

"There's an element of that. Too many close calls. People aren't talking about the number of county titles you've won or the number of Ulster championships. It's more, `ah, you should have won this, you should have won that'. They're inclined to look for negatives."

Modest origins aren't much of a distinction in club championships. You almost expect the day a half-parish with a population of 32 wins a county title. Yet even allowing for this, Dunloy have done well with its population of less than 2,000. The club was far-seeing enough to marshal youth into intensive development programmes over 20 years ago.

Six years ago, Dunloy eliminated Athenry with a late goal and reached their first All-Ireland final. They faced the mercurial hurlers of Birr, who were hot favourites. Joe Errity, Birr's full back six years ago, isn't sure if they underestimated Dunloy but knows that if they did, it was a mistake.

"We were dead lucky to come away with the draw. They really frightened us that day. The weather was awful. There was a storm blowing hoardings all over the place and they went in a few points ahead with the wind, if you could call it that, to follow in the second half.

"After half-time, I think they were inclined to run too much with the ball. We kept them quiet and maybe doubts crept in on them and we clawed our way back into it."

Elliott feels that their interval lead was their undoing. "The conditions. We had a hurricane behind us to come and we were leading by four or five points. At half-time we went into the dressing-room and there was a sense of elation and disbelief - `we're going to do this, we're going to win the All-Ireland'.

"On the field, we got this sinking feeling as they came back into it. I think we'd have been better off a couple of points down. With all the will in the world the feeling that you're going to win before the second half is played is bound to affect you. Birr's comeback was exceptional and we were always struggling."

The replay is almost a postscript. On a sunny, breezy day in April, Birr started ruthlessly and were 2-7 to no score ahead at half-time. "If we did underestimate them the first day, we went out the second day and took the game to them. They'd difficulty getting scores," says Errity.

"I couldn't tell you much about the replay. It's not something you want to remember," says Elliott.

Giving their final opponents a good start became a habit for Dunloy. One thing Sixmilebridge people remember about the 1996 final is that the official party split onto two buses. The wives and girlfriends got stuck in St Patrick's Day traffic. By the time this busload were taking their seats, Danny Chaplin had scored Sixmilebridge's first goal.

The Clare champions arrived in the final averaging four goals a match since the county final. Dunloy's semi-final victory over Kilkenny's Glenmore had been very emphatic but it was the Sixmilebridge statistics that were to endure. There's no great point in trying to find consolation in a 13-point defeat but for most of its term, this was a competitive tie.

Gerry McInerney was Sixmilebridge's top scorer that year. "The scoreline did them an injustice. I looked at the video only recently. With 15 minutes to go, we were only two points up (3-5 to 2-6). Kevin McInerney cleared a ball off the line and Davy Fitz made a great save to keep us in front.

"We'd have noticed we weren't pulling away from them. One goal and they were in front and if they got their tails up, you didn't know what would happen. It was the first time since the county final (against Scarriff) that we hadn't put a team away so late into the game."

Execution wasn't long delayed and Dunloy shipped 2-5 without reply as the final quarter drained away from them. "I honestly think we just didn't have the belief in that final," says Elliott. "We were there up until the end but even at that stage we had already conceded three goals, they were always coming back at us. I think we could have responded in the final 10 minutes but we just didn't perform, didn't have that confidence.

"If we've learned something over the years, it's probably to relax in matches, not to panic. If things aren't going that well, don't panic - like we did against both Birr and Sixmilebridge. Now we settle ourselves better."

The team that takes on Athenry tomorrow hasn't changed enormously. Only four of the Ulster title-winning side of last October hadn't played in the All-Ireland final of six years ago. Since the All-Ireland defeats, there have been further crushing disappointments. Three years ago, Dunloy led Sarsfields of Galway by a point in injury-time, got hauled back for a replay, and facing into the last 20 minutes they were leading by a point and playing 13 men.

Elliott says it was 1995 all over again. "Two great games and there we were at the end of the replay with two (Sarsfields) men sent off, thinking `we have this won'." Instead Joe Cooney inspired the Galway champions to a famous two-point win.

It brought down the curtain on Dunloy for two years as the club had been suspended from the Ulster championship for 1998 after violence at the provincial final against Lavey in October 1997. "The team was in need of a break by then although you obviously don't want it to come about in that way," says Elliott.

The club championship is a punishing pursuit and teams in the final have generally been in training for over 12 months. Elliott is upbeat but knows that his team can't go on forever. "I think we're better, I really do. We've more scoring forwards, some good young players and a lot of experience. We're more balanced. But the average age of the team has gone up from 21 when we were first together to around 30. We've been training since February 2000 for this.

"We know we don't have the same element of surprise as before when southern counties wouldn't have treated us a seriously as clubs from other counties. I think we're as well prepared as we could be but if we're beaten on Sunday, we'll struggle to pick it up again. I'm sure the club will be back but this group of players may not."