National Hurling League: Ian O'Riordanassesses the mood within the Dublin hurling camp following their bright league start.

No one is getting carried away. Typically that's a lot easier said than done but the one thing that seems certain about the current Dublin senior hurling team is that no one is getting carried away.

Dublin hurling over the past decade has endured a roller-coaster ride, only without any of the really high thrills. A better way of describing it might be a ghost train, with a smile or two along the way but a lot of it being nightmare stuff.

At least it's always proved topical - for better or for worse. Much has been written about what ails Dublin hurling (and these sports pages are no exception). Check the archive for the words "development squads" and "structures" and "improving skills and fitness" and so on and chances are Dublin hurling will show up alongside them.

The recurring theme has been one step forward, two steps back. A promising victory or two at senior level is followed by several horrendous defeats. A breakthrough win at underage level is followed by the loss of key players to football. The arrival of another enthusiastic manager ends with another bitter departure.

So anyone associated with Dublin hurling is not about to get carried away by a promising start to the league. Dublin drew with Kilkenny in the opening round and that made headline news in the sports pages. Last Sunday they beat Galway and excitable journalists talked of a hurling revolution.

However, should Dublin lose to Limerick tomorrow, and follow that with another defeat to Antrim next Wednesday, it will be seen as another false dawn. It's far too soon to say Dublin have arrived again as a respected and consistently competitive team at senior level.

Yet there are some obvious qualities to the current team that were lacking in so many of its predecessors - youthful confidence being the first one. From the throw-in of last Sunday's game at Parnell Park it was clear Dublin were intent on giving as good as they got, and in the end there was no arguing that Galway had been beaten by a hungrier, more determined team. Ger Loughnane's claim of it being a "massacre" was surely exaggerated but he certainly wasn't left with any excuses.

It's easy to trace the source of Dublin's confidence. Four of the current panel were on the victorious Leinster minor-winning team of 2005 - Dublin's first success in the grade since 1983.

Most of the rest were part of the consistently good under-21 teams of recent years that just failed to collect a Leinster title of their own. And then a year ago there was Dublin's historic All-Ireland win at colleges level.

If this does prove to be the breakthrough senior hurling team the county has been praying for then it comes with a somewhat unlikely manager. It was often argued Dublin needed a flamboyant manager to guide them out of the hurling darkness, and yet Tommy Naughton is about as low-key as they come.

Naughton didn't even fancy the job in the first place. When Humphrey Kelleher was shown the exit door after a 12-game losing streak at the start of the 2005 championship Naughton agreed to take over for the rest of the summer. He helped avoid relegation from the championship, but, citing restrictions of players to pick from, he decided that was all he wanted.

Fortunately he was tempted into a change of heart, bringing in selectors Andy Cunningham and Tommy Ryan with the idea of making slow and steady progress, but making no promises. While some of his predecessors proclaimed the great things Dublin hurlers were about to do, Naughton was determined to keep the head down, let the results do all the talking.

"Tommy is very, very level-headed," says Cunningham. "And he's definitely not one to make over-the-top statements about Dublin hurling about to do this or that. And then all of a sudden they fall flat on their face. Tommy has been around a long time. He goes back to 1996 and 1997, when Michael O'Grady was manager, and they had a reasonably good team then.

"He also knows the club scene in Dublin very well, which is very important. He realises what Dublin have to do to make progress, but he also makes sure they do that in a quiet and unassuming way.

"He was also under-21 manager for four years, and took them to three Leinster finals. So it really was a natural progression for him to try to bring them on at senior level."

Cunningham also knows two good league results don't translate as consistency. He also knows the ability of this Dublin hurling team as well as anyone, especially given the large spread of fellow O'Toole club members: Philip Brennan, Michael Carton, Liam and Kevin Ryan, Ger O'Meara and the experienced Kevin Flynn.

"Look, no one is getting carried away here. I hope not anyway. We've got a lot of good under-21 players from recent years on board, and we also benefited from getting three or four that were on the Leinster-winning minor team. We have got this good squad together. They are also working very hard at the moment, and that definitely has something to do with it as well.

"But a lot of it does go back to all the work that's going on in the development squads. With the underage structures you know what's there, and what's coming through. In the old days, players were lost to the game after minor and under-21 level. But they are being brought on now from under-14, under-15 and under-16, so it is only natural that more will progress beyond that.

"But there is a vast difference from minor and under-21 level to senior. And Dublin still need to get more consistent at senior level. Consistency has always been the big problem, really. Dublin have always had good hurlers. The problem has been getting consistent for the league and championship.

"But I definitely think these players have been going out against say, Wexford and Kilkenny at under-14 and under-15 and so on, and are beating them at that level. Twenty years ago there was none of that. So these guys are at the stage now when they've beaten most of them at underage level, and don't see any reason why they can't transfer that to senior level."

There is another difference between the current Dublin team and so many of its predecessors. The drain of hurling talent, from Shane Ryan to Conal Keaney, and more recently from David O'Callaghan to Diarmuid Connolly, over to football, appears to have stalled. There are still several dual talents within the team (none more so that former minor football and hurling captain John McCaffrey, who misses Sunday's game through injury) and crucially they all seem committed to the hurling cause.

"You would hope that this is a trend that will continue, and most of the players that have come through the development squads will keep saying this is the game to them.

"But in fairness to the likes of Conal Keaney you can't really blame them for going the way they did. You only have to look back to the start of the league when Dublin had 80,000 at their first football match against Tyrone in Croke Park. And we've had days when there'd be maybe 80 at our hurling matches. That's just the reality."

All the current team are looking for in the weeks ahead is to ensure their Division One status for next year, and bring some new-found consistency into the championship. There's a reluctance to talk of making the league play-offs. "We have a very tough schedule now," says Cunningham. "Three away games in eight days. I think it's a very tough to ask amateur players to play three hard games in eight games.

"And the championship is still the ultimate measure of hurling

. . . But then to make the play-offs of the league would be great . . ."

With that Cunningham stops himself. It's not the time for anyone in Dublin hurling to be getting carried away.

Dublin Hurling - a decade of few highs and mostly lows

1998: Dublin crash to a spirit-breaking 4-23 to 0-14 defeat to Kilkenny in the quarter-final.

1999: Manager Michael O'Grady makes a passionate plea for more championship games after Dublin endure a narrow one-point defeat to Wexford in the Leinster quarter-final, 1-13 to 1-12.

2000: O'Grady's Dublin win their way past Carlow, Westmeath, and then Laois - after a replay - but they fall to Kilkenny in the semi-final 3-16 to 0-10.

2001: Former Kilkenny stalwart Kevin Fennelly takes over but Dublin fall to Laois by a single point in the Leinster quarter-final, 1-15 to 2-11.

But the Dublin Colleges team win a historic Leinster hurling title, inspired by a Conal Keaney and the likes of Derek O'Reilly, Stephen Hiney and Philip Brennan.

2002: Dublin defeat Westmeath and then Meath, but Wexford beat them in the Leinster semi-final, before Clare annihilate them in the qualifiers. The under-21s - again fronted by Keaney - come agonisingly close to winning a Leinster title before being pipped by a late Wexford goal in the final.

2003: New manager Marty Morris guides Dublin to victory in the Walsh Cup with a one-point win over Kilkenny in the final. In the championship Dublin beat Westmeath and Laois after a replay before tamely falling to Kilkenny in the Leinster semi-final. Offaly then end their summer in the qualifiers.

2004: Morris steps down and new manager Humphrey Kelleher guides Dublin to a 4-21 to 2-06 victory over Offaly in the league. In the championship, Dublin beat Westmeath before crashing to a heavy defeat to Offaly (2-25 to 1-13) - and an even heavier defeat to Kilkenny (4-22 to 0-8) in the qualifiers.

2005: Kelleher's two-year reign ends after losing to Laois in the Leinster quarter-final. Tommy Naughton takes over and despite defeats to Clare, Waterford and Offaly in the qualifiers, Dublin avoid relegation with a play-off win over Laois. Dublin minors defeat Offaly, Kilkenny and finally Wexford to claim the Leinster title. The under-21s lose 0-17 to 1-10 to Kilkenny in the provincial final.

2006: Dublin Colleges win a first ever All-Ireland title by defeating St Flannan's. Naughton's team earn promotion in the league, before suffering a shock defeat in Leinster to Westmeath. Despite three defeats in the qualifiers, Dublin turn the tables on Westmeath in the relegation play-off.

2007: Dublin earn a draw with Kilkenny and victory over Galway in their first two league games.