Although it's a little early to start talking about a football-hurling double in Galway, the fact that dual intercounty players are now less conspicuous than ever has already created notable hype around Alan Kerins.

This Sunday, Kerins will head to Croke Park with Galway as they attempt to get past Derry and earn a place in the All-Ireland football final. Last Sunday he was in Croke Park with the hurlers as they shocked Kilkenny to earn a place in the hurling final. These days, such high-flying juggling between the two codes can't escape attention.

For Kerins, the story of two championships in one summer is heightened by the changing nature of his roles. Last summer he was known almost exclusively for his creative forward work with the hurlers, this summer most of the spotlight has fallen on his attacking exploits with the footballers. Yet Galway football manager John O'Mahony says that situation comes down to a matter of timing.

"The thing was that the Galway hurlers had no championship game until the quarter-final with Derry at the end of July. That worked out well for us, and meant that Alan was available from the start of the championship right through the knockout qualifiers.

"His emphasis had gone back to hurling since we beat Roscommon in the quarter-final, and now he is back with us this week. The timing of it worked out and the only problem really was that he had to miss a few games for his club."

The GAA records show that 18 men have been successful at winning All-Ireland titles in both football and hurling, but only one man was ever successful at doing it in the same year. Teddy McCarthy was part of Cork's double in 1990, while others, such as Jack Lynch and Jimmy Barry-Murphy, won All-Ireland titles in both codes but in different years.

Cork's Seβn ╙hAilp∅n was the last man to come close to winning the double. He was with the Cork team that won the hurling title in 1999 but then lost out a fortnight later when Meath took the football title.

O'Mahony, though, is staying well away from any talk of a double in Galway this year - concentrating, he says, on the "huge bridge" that Derry present - but he has developed a strategy with Galway hurling manager Noel Lane so that the double role of Kerins could be accommodated.

"The one person we didn't want to see suffer in this was Alan Kerins," says O'Mahony. "But where he would train during the winter wasn't an issue because he only came into the football panel about three weeks before our first game with Leitrim.

"We were still finalising our championship panel at that stage, because having made the league final there was less of a transition period than usual. By then he had done all his physical training with the hurlers, and so he was superbly fit. Even since then he has only being doing the ball work with us."

The appearance of Kerins in the football championship team was a sudden one - and not without its controversy. His positioning on the team to play Leitrim in May coincided with the dispute that saw both John and Michael Donnellan temporarily depart from the panel. Part of that problem seemed to arise from John Donnellan's place going to Kerins, though the situation soon cooled off.

Yet his arrival had been carefully researched. Although Kerins plays his hurling with Clarinbridge, the lack of football opportunities there saw him divert similar energies to Salthill/Knocknacarra. O'Mahony was aware of his influential role there, and was also being informed of his sparkling form for Trinity College in the Sigerson Cup.

"I spoke to him a few weeks before the championship and of course I was delighted when he answered the call. We didn't want to restrict his hurling in any way but the opportunity was there and we were happy to make use of it."

But it takes more than just a compromise between the two managers for a dual role to come off at this level: "Most of all it depends on the player. I think mentally you need to have that extra bit of ambition, but there certainly wouldn't be any pressure on the player to go with both games. We had the case of David Tierney last year but he made the choice to concentrate on hurling this year, and that decision was accepted by everyone."

It seems certain such dual roles will continue to become more isolated. The football calendar has already become more claustrophobic with the qualifier series and next year the revised hurling championship will further stem the opportunities.

"I think those sort of opportunities will definitely be closed down in the future," says O'Mahony. "It will get harder and harder to play both games at this level as time goes on. We were fortunate that it worked out fine this year but the way fixtures are going I can't see that lasting much longer."