The Irish club game breaks new ground today, even if it seems like the same old ground. The advent of the top-four play-offs in the AIL was derided as "a Dublin 4 plot" by some Limerick folk, designed to wrest the trophy away from its annual resting place. So they set about carving the semifinals up by finishing first, second and third. Squeezing into the semi-finals in fourth place on behalf of the rest of the country, almost apologetically, are St Mary's.

Party poopers or fall guys?

Part of the attraction/frustration (dilute to taste) of St Mary's is that they have the capacity to be either. But they can be dangerous. "Can be dangerous? They are dangerous," concedes Shannon coach Pat Murray as the holders brace themselves for the `outsiders' at Thomond Park today.

When St Mary's are good, they are very good. They've pace to burn out wide in the international strike three of John McWeeney, Denis Hickie and full back Kevin Nowlan. They've a class act in Conor McGuinness, and a couple of serious hombres in Victor Costello and Trevor Brennan. But when they're bad, they're horrid.

Mercurial. Enigmatic. Underachievers. St Mary's take a few tags with them to Thomond Park this afternoon. And no better man to run these tags by than Steve Jameson, second-row bulwark in a consistently anti-climactic cause, the man with blue blood in his veins who has never missed an AIL game for Mary's - today being his 81st.

Co-operative as ever, he agreed to a meeting at short notice in Johnny Fox's, reputedly the highest pub in Ireland and so perhaps a fitting watering hole to discuss the lofty AIL ambitions of his club.

Fiercely loyal and determined though he is, `Jemo' is also chatty and candid after devouring a chowder and a jumbo seaman's platter.

"Yes, well, we are accused of that (inconsistency) and rightly so. There's something in that alright, in so far as we just seem to get so close on the final day we slip up for various reasons. It's not to do with bottling out, I don't think. There's a fair bit of luck involved too and I think we've had the short end of the stick a few times. But the only way to change that is to start winning a few crunch games."

Up until last season, St Mary's had never won in Limerick and even this season lost by 32-11 at Shannon and 13-12 at Garryowen, while edgily beating Old Crescent in a torrid game 17-16, thus giving substance to those aforementioned tags.

But Jameson is quick to counter this one. "Yeah, we're also the most consistent Dublin side in the AIL as well. In fact, we're probably the only Dublin club to stay in Division One from day one." True too.

"Again, it goes back to the old argument of people saying we haven't got the bottle for Limerick. We have. We're not afraid of anything in Limerick. That's a fact. But hats off to Limerick sides, they're very, very good."

Why? "They're very, very passionate. They've very good rugby teams and they play very passionately and it pays off. And no real complaints. We've had a few hard-luck stories down there but so far when we have been beaten down there, probably deservedly so; nothing to do with bottle. Just things didn't go our way on the day."

The passion also comes from the sidelines, where traditionally the Limerick clubs are much better supported than clubs from anywhere else. But Jameson contends that St Mary's will have good support at Thomond Park today.

"Hopefully a lot of neutrals will come and support us as well. Without sounding big-headed about it I think Ulster, Connacht and Leinster will all be cheering for Mary's, and let's hope they're very vocal on the day. But when it comes down to it we've got to do it ourselves. We've got to get our heads right. If we get everything right and we get the rub of the green, as every team needs, we can win and will win down there."

Yet it's probably also fair to say that for all their internecine rivalries, other Limerick supporters will be rooting for Shannon as the lesser of two evils. Certainly, one couldn't imagine many Young Munster supporters or Old Crescent fans having much warmth for St Mary's, given the bitter rivalry between Mary's and the former dating back to the Peter Clohessy stamping incident on Jameson five years ago, not to mention Crescent's recent brouhaha with the Templeogue club.

For all the condemnation of Crescent amongst members of other Limerick clubs, there was also a clear antipathy toward Mary's as they dryly observed that Mary's and Jameson were the supposed innocent victims again.

Jameson has an intriguingly fresh perspective on this one, which may well have a certain validity given 5,000 turned up at Thomond Park for their visit there in January.

"Well, dare I say it but I think it's all out of respect for Mary's. I wouldn't think they'd admit that, but I think it's out of respect for Mary's. We're the one side that have consistently stood up to Limerick sides and given them some scares. I don't think there's any bad blood between Shannon and Mary's. We've always had good, tough games, and we'll have another good, tough game on Saturday. There's no thoughts whatsoever of any bad blood from our point of view and I wouldn't expect to see any at all on the day either."

"As regards the Old Crescent game, some people in Limerick have this illusion - and sometimes it's people who don't know us too well - and they get this opinion that we're soft. Mary's are not a soft side. We've never been soft. We may not have been the complete team in the past, but we're certainly not a soft side. It's unfortunate about the Old Crescent game, because I thought it was all over and I was taken by surprise."

Dare one say it, and Limerick folk are even less likely to admit this, but there may also be an underlying respect for Jameson as well. Given Mary's have a host of more obviously `sexy' targets for the touchline wags, what with their quotient of five internationals, it's funny how often the verbals at Limerick pitchsides are directed at the wholehearted Cavan-born lock. Him and Trevor Brennan, another hardy hoor who clearly cares.

Limerick folk, underneath it all, can identify with that.

Privately, they will concede that if Mary's had more like Jameson, they might have reached their holy grail before now. At times, he seems to have been a one-man resistance in an otherwise, er, soft tight five.

No less than Mick Galwey at Shannon, Jameson has been a lynchpin of the Mary's tight five this past eight years. Its remarkable to think that he has never missed an AIL game for St Mary's, nor for that matter a league or cup tie for either Monkstown or Mary's in the last 11 years, save for one Leinster League match with Monkstown on the day his brother was being married and when rested for a preliminary round tie in the Leinster Senior Cup last year against Railway.

He admits that he's pretty pleased with that. "I think it's mostly down to luck and you've got to want to play as well. There's times you play when you might have a knock or a cold or whatever, but at the end of the day you've got to want to play, and I want to play. I've always wanted to play and nothing too bad has ever kept me out of a game."

He fulfilled a schoolboy desire to join Mary's when leaving Monkstown 10 years ago. Jameson had been impressed when the full St Mary's senior side (Terry Kennedy, Paul Dean, current coach Hugh Maguire, Tony Ward et al) played the school he boarded at, Rockwell College, and showered the impressionable schoolboys with hospitality in an unapologetic recruitment drive.

After five years at Monkstown, two on the under-19s and three on the senior XV, Jameson felt that "if I wanted to progress and play at a higher level then I had to join Mary's. I lost some very good friends in Monkstown because of it," he adds, the memory clearly etched on his face for a moment, "but at the end of the day I've no regrets. I'm a true blue Mary's man now and have been for a long time."

A Leinster League winners medal and two Leinster Cup medals constitute tangible rewards, but an AIL title would cap Mr Consistency's club career. He is now in his third year as captain of the club. The first provided his biggest disappointment (one senses, bigger than never winning a cap), that decisive last-day defeat to Young Munster at Lansdowne Road six years ago.

"We were a bit naive. First of all we were supposed to have played at home but played at Lansdowne Road. It could have been different in Mary's. Mary's are hard to beat in Templeville Road."

A mistake by the club? "Oh a big mistake. It should have been at home. We should have said: "Look, we can only cater for 6,000. Here's 3,000 (to Young Munster) and everybody else will have to watch it from the road or on television. We didn't do that and it was a mistake."

"I still have nightmares about it. I'll never get over that," he says, the memory of that one even more clearly etched on his brow. Then he adds: "There's only way of getting over that, win the league this year."

This time last year Jameson was wondering aloud about retirement. This year he isn't. The old warhorse will be 33 in the summer, he has a wife, Emer, and a child, two-yearold child, Lauren. The difficulties of living in Bray while combining work as a sales director with Air Fastening Systems Ltd and an ever increasing training regime with Leinster and Mary's which began at the end of last May have intensified.

But he'll hold all thoughts about the future until the summer.

For the moment, all he can think of is the present, St Mary's and the AIL. The holy grail. Ask him if it's an obsession and there's ne'er a hint of embarrassment as he looks you squarely in the eye.

"Yes. It is."