Seven weeks after the county's defeat in last month's All-Ireland final, Tipperary's hurling community turns its attention to a compelling climax to the county championship. In Thurles on Sunday, Clonoulty-Rossmore play Mullinahone CJ Kickhams in a unique final pairing. Clonoulty is the club of one of the county's bestknown players of recent years, Declan Ryan, and is no stranger to success at this level, having taken the county title in 1989.

Mullinahone on the other hand, have travelled an extraordinary journey in the last 10 years.

The club is from south Tipperary, traditionally the weakest hurling region in the county, and its rise is inextricably linked with one of the game's biggest and most controversial names, John Leahy, whose combination of extravagant on-field skills and off-field private difficulties have kept him in the public eye since he emerged as a county player at the age of 18, 10 years ago.

It is 30 years since Carrick Davins, featuring Mick Roche one of the great county hurlers of the 1960s, last took the senior title to south Tipp and 28 years since Davins made the region's last appearance in a county final - until this weekend.

In order to emphasise the progress, club secretary and PRO Richard Sheehan gives the following illustration.

"In 1987, Mullinahone's best hurling team was beaten in the first round of the south Tipperary junior championship. That's how low we were then. For the first 101 years of its history, the club had only one hurler picked for Tipperary; since then (1986), there's been 10."

Local legend has it that when Leahy was considered for the last place on the 1986 county minor panel - along with another player - the fact that he was from Mullinahone was sufficient reason to tip the verdict against him.

Sheehan is emphatic in his praise for Leahy. "He has been absolutely central to our achievements. There is not a better club player in the country. He has done things over the years for the club that no other players would have done. Yes, he went off the rails for a little while but he is now a better player.

"He's a born leader and were we to win on Sunday, I couldn't imagine otherwise but that he would captain the county next year (county player Brian O'Meara is also a Mullinahone man). We are conscious that the one honour the club could confer on him is to help him achieve this ambition - which he can't do any other way because of the system in the county (whereby captains are nominated by the county champions)".

One commonly held view is inaccurate. Leahy is not the first player from the club to have played hurling for Tipperary. Mick Cahill, who went on to football renown with both his county and Cork, played one minor championship match for Tipp in 1941.

Although he was only 16, further representative honours were denied him when the inter-county minor championships were abandoned for the remainder of the war.

Predominantly a football club for the first 50 years after its foundation in 1885, Mullinahone won four senior county championships before hurling made any sort of an impact. Richard Sheehan explains the origins: "Around 1940, a couple of people began to promote hurling. One, Bob Cusack, was a guard from Limerick and the other was Rody Curran, a former member of the Thurles Sarsfields who was teaching here. They got it off the ground but it was very much a second game."

This remained the case until the mid1980s and the emergence of Leahy. In 1987, he played on the Tipperary minors who won the Munster title and lost to Offaly in an All-Ireland final during which Leahy was marked by Johnny Dooley.

The year was significant for another reason. Mullinahone stopped amalgamating with other clubs for the purpose of fielding teams in under-age hurling championships and decided to go it alone.

Within a year, the club's first hurling title had been won. In a major upset, Mullinahone beat Loughmore-Castleiney, at the time senior champions, in the under-21 B championship.

After a replay, Leahy cut the winning point over the bar from a 50-yard sideline with two minutes remaining.

Another year passed and Mullinahone had taken the Tipperary under-21 A title within a week of winning the county junior championship. By 1992, the club was senior and all its under-age teams were playing A grade hurling.

Sunday, according to Richard Sheehan, will be "brand new territory" but it is thoroughly in keeping with the club's trajectory over recent years.