SFC Qualifier Round Three: Ian O'Riordan finds Wayne McCarthy eager as ever to again wear the blue with distinction

Part of the novelty that still surrounds the All-Ireland football qualifiers is remembering when. Tripping through the back pages of rare championship meetings, and the players that defined them. Look back at Dublin's last meeting with Longford and the player that springs to mind is Wayne McCarthy.

Three years ago last May, and with Dublin loaded with championship ambition, Tom Carr took his team to Croke Park with the 20-year-old McCarthy starting at corner forward. Dublin won by nine points and the rookie scored 1-1. It was a game largely defined by McCarthy. The future of Dublin football seemed to have arrived.

This evening in Portlaoise, Dublin repeat that slender championship rivalry with Longford, and McCarthy will be nowhere near the place. He played the rest of 2001 but hasn't worn a Dublin jersey since. And it's not through lack of desire.

"I remember that goal against Longford like it was yesterday," says McCarthy, adding it remains his only championship goal for Dublin - to date.

"I also have fond memories of the build-up to that game. It was a game we were expected to win and that brought a little bit of tension, and then when we won it quite well there was a huge relief, more so than joy. And I think that's the way the team will feel on Saturday."

McCarthy hasn't lost all ties with the team. He regularly meets Jason Sherlock or Dessie Farrell for lunch in the city. And he thinks about how much he'd like to rejoin them. For now his efforts are limited to club football with Erin's Isle, but he's still only 23, far too young to give up hope of a total recall.

Yet things have clearly gone wrong since 2001. The following season was a washout, starting with a chronic groin injury. He eventually underwent a hernia operation and when he eventually got back playing the landscape of Dublin football was altered. Carr was exiled and Tommy Lyons was boss.

"I've always aspired to playing at the highest level," he adds, "and that's exactly how I feel now. I think that first full year on the panel I learned an awful lot, things that would still stand to me. So of course the hunger is still there to try to make it back, that's what drives me on."

McCarthy has never played a competitive game under Lyons. Last season he was asked back for a trial match, and then took part in one training session. He wasn't asked back but was told to stay focused on his club football.

"What can you do?" he asks. "You try to impress them the best you can, but it's up to the current management to decide what sort of chance you deserve. I'm not going to tell them. But I've never played one competitive game under Tommy Lyons, not even a challenge. So I'll let people make up their own mind on that."

His absence is a topic that doesn't just arise in bar-rooms. Whenever Dublin's troubled free-taking is mentioned McCarthy comes to mind. He is fondly remembered for his powerful boot, especially with the placed ball. In the Leinster minor championship of 1998 he produced what some people regard as the last great showcase of free-taking in Dublin. Against Meath he hit 10 points, eight of them frees and one a 45-metre.

When he hit the big time in 2001 the Breaking Ball crew recreated his childhood days collecting the ball behind the goal for Charlie Redmond. In a way that inspired unfavourable comparisons to Redmond, who only developed into a steely free-taker much later in his career. McCarthy still feels he can prove himself.

There are no after-effects now from the injury and he regularly puts over big frees for Erin's Isle. But he knows there is some baggage there, like that late free he missed in Dublin's 2001 championship exit to Kerry.

"I just put that down as a bad experience. And of course it's a big disappointment not to be involved, especially when I feel I am a far better player now. So I find it much harder to sit in the stands."

But he cares as much about Dublin winning: "I'm delighted for the lads to be coming through again . . . Obviously I don't know the mood of the panel because I'm not a part of it. But I don't think they're playing as well as they can. I think they are better than what they've shown this year. Westmeath was a bad experience for them, I know, but they haven't really come up against quality opposition yet so we just don't know how far they can go on."

But the thought of them playing Longford this evening brings him back to 2001. He was 20 then, and felt old at that. At 23 now, he feels younger than ever.