This weekend they'll take the sun, shifting uncomfortably beneath their annual hit of media glare. Newspapers and cameras have come to record the annual sombre feature on Dublin hurling. This weekend they'll squint their eyes up and use their hands for shade.

This weekend everyone is interested. A little bit interested. Next weekend they'll read about the hurling championship in the paper and they'll watch the crackle of live coverage. It will be somebody else's competition. They'll watch it like a travel programme. Nice places they'll never go to.

Last year ultimately was no different. The hurling pockets of the capital were suffused with weird sunny optimism all through May. Kilkenny on their way to Parnell Park. The hurling zealots of Dublin smiling quietly like men springing a trap.

Kilkenny left town with a 21-point winning margin under their oxters. Dublin hurling men watched them on the telly later. Watched them going to the All-Ireland final. Exotic.

Tomorrow is probably Michael O'Grady's last day in charge. Dublin hurling has worn him to a frazzle. Sometimes he's driving up the Clontarf Road on a sunny evening and he looks at the spaces where his team have trod in wintertime. Clontarf Road and Fairview might have sucked the energy from them.

Winter is the time of the year they are condemned to. He thinks how nice it would be to train and hurl here in the summer, honing skills.

And how glad he is that he won't be out here on wet dark nights next winter, checking behind bushes to make sure the dispirited aren't hiding from hard work.

Three years he has been in charge. Hundreds of training sessions in the dark. He can't be too hard on the dispirited. Fogging breaths, the bitter cold stiffening the limbs and sly dampness sneaking from the earth towards the socks. Three years and he has been granted three championship games. Well, tomorrow is his third. A man could wither and die at the drawing board.

Last summer, of course, was like a kick in the guts. He wasn't sure if anything could be salvaged from it. Yet what has astounded him is the manner in which young fellows will come back and submit to another winter in the darkness. When they have the strength in them they'll happily light candles rather than curse the night.

Michael O'Grady? He was beaten up by it.

"I don't recall after that match. I think I can recall going over to talk to somebody on radio. D J Carey grabbed me and said hard luck. I would know D J well. I wasn't clued in. I was punch drunk. After 10 minutes of the second half I was hoping the match would be finished. So were the players. I don't recall it. It was a nightmare that I don't want to recall. Very painful. At the beginning of summer you are told it's over, come back next November boys."

In the aftermath, the obituary writers noted that the perceived death of Dublin hurling had been hastened by the departure of Jamesie Brennan and Eamonn Morrissey, aristocrats returning to their estates in Kilkenny. "They are gone and we ain't dead," says O'Grady.

"We haven't fallen apart since they left. They gave good service. Eamonn was a model trainer. Shiner was a bit behind. Shiner lost his form last year. Eamonn had reached the end really, suffering from hamstrings. He wanted to give his last year to his club at home.

It wasn't age, it was mileage. They were good lads and they gave well but I don't live in the past. In another sense I am delighted that we are going forward with a team of lads that are true blue."

He has splurged on youth. The happy forecasts of his early days in charge when he gave estimates of how long it would be before Dublin won a hurling All-Ireland were revised last summer but the investment in young players has been significant.

If the commitment from the county board continues the dividend will come he feels.

It is only 1996 since Dublin last played Wexford in serious hurling. Nine of the team who play tomorrow had no involvement that day. In a county where practically all senior club hurlers know each other's scars that is as much change as the shallow pool will allow.

"We have nine of last year's under-21 team on our panel. We lost to Kilkenny last year but there were good things going on underneath. That's the way forward for us. A young team given time to play top matches. We are two years in Division One now finding it hard to survive but we are guaranteed five or six matches. That's all we have until the system changes."

The system. He has given half a lifetime to railing against its sheer wrong-headedness. The system has been an enemy of hurling, a foe of promise, a prop for the aristocracy.

"I've a pain in my face listing this off," he says. "In the 70s when I was training Tipp, back in my young days, I recall preparing stats one time to show that between May 1st and October 1st there were 16 hurling matches involving what we would call the hurling counties. Between October 1st and May 1st there were 56 matches for Division One teams. I'd always finish by saying: hurling is a summer game.

"I hope now we are on the verge of something. You just can't condone it, what they have done to hurlers. We have played seven back-to-back league matches in the last couple of months and one championship match every year for the last seven years."

"It staggers me. This year, for example, all the Leinster Council can offer hurling this year is four matches. One quarter-final, two semi-finals and a final. For all the effort that goes into hurling in this province that's all they can offer to hurling. If they are happy with that the Leinster Council haven't their heads tuned in at all.

"Nine or 10 hard-working teams are knocked out before the end of May, the beginning of June. School hasn't closed. Summer hasn't started. And it's all over.

"Look at this weekend. Limerick or Waterford. Dublin or Wexford. Gone. It's not summer yet."

If he were to leave a parting memo on his desk it would be a memo to the people in Croke Park. Get those heads out of the sand. Give us more hurling and better hurling. Use Friday nights, Saturday afternoons, Saturday nights and Sundays. Flood the summer with the summer game. But sure . . .

As for Dublin? Local spirit is good. If he could cleanse the county of the scourge of the dual player he would be a happier. Two years ago he was involved with the Dublin Combined Colleges team which represents Dublin at secondary school level. What was being asked of young players drew his breath away.

"They played school games on Friday, trained with us at 9.30 Saturday, played under-21 or minor club in the afternoon. Sunday morning they played club and Sunday evening they were back on their bikes in O'Toole Park training with us. The next day they were back in their schools playing a couple of games, training with the school and training with their clubs.

"It is just not on. The dual player is the real bogey of the Dublin scene. Football and hurling don't complement each other."

He has a couple of the species within his own panel. Liam Walsh spent the winter training full-time with the Dublin footballers but has resurfaced in the hurling community. O'Grady noticed the lovely touch was gone awry when Walsh first came back but trusts the thoroughbred to be sharp tomorrow He understands Walsh's moments of infidelity. Having been on the county football panel for good spells in the 90s he missed out on the All-Ireland of 1995. Last winter he trained in an exemplary way with the hurlers and it all fell flat on the day. If Walsh thought the footballers were leaving the station for some place important O'Grady can understand why he would want to be on board.

Shane Ryan, from hurling stock on both sides of his family, is another case in point. He played on 11 different teams this year. O'Grady worries about him.

"Long-term Shane will be a better hurler. If we were performing well on the hurling I think Shane would have no doubt where his loyalty would be, but at the moment the glory is in the football and you can't blame a young lad for going where the glory is."

Part of the problem is mindset. Back in the 1960s it was proposed at a Dublin convention by Brother Kenny that the GAA form two separate boards, one for hurling one for football.

"He wasn't laughed at but they all said he was for the birds. The smaller clubs are the problem. They need to spread players around. The bigger clubs shouldn't have dual players. After minor, players should make their mind up. They are burned out by the age of 25."

The nature of the man, though, is to look for signs of life. The better clubs in the county are increasingly involved in the schools, sending in hurleys, sliotars, transport and people to help with the teams. Hurling, especially in Dublin primary schools, needs that level of nurture.

"I'm more optimistic," he said. "We don't have a depth of players but the present senior team are good hurlers. Four of our forwards tomorrow are under-21. That's too many but I still believe they are very good hurlers."

Four of the new breed debut tomorrow. Four last year as well. That's eight he has blooded.

"I'll be happy leaving the scene knowing there is a good crop coming. Give us a round robin system, four or five games and we won't be that far off."

The hope is still there. He looks at players like Ryan, McGrane, Sweeney and others. They brim with potential. Hothoused they could be as good as anything in the country. Hope. He has to believe in it, has to hold it up against the stark backdrop of the system and marvel at it.

"The dream lives on. It's 61 years since it happened, since Dublin won an All-Ireland, 38 years since we were seen in a final. But the dream lives on."