It's the summer of 1996 and Dublin are matching Kilkenny point for point in hurling. The final of the Leinster minor championship is so finely balanced that Kilkenny must dig deep to find the winning goal that pulls them safely home.

Two years on, and the under-21 side are in the provincial decider for the first time in 26 years. Again they fall to the grace of Kilkenny, but it's another close nick, and Dublin have reason to be optimistic.

Yet, in the eyes of many, such results can easily be dismissed as false dawns. Similar, indeed, to the minor side of 1983 that went all the way to the All-Ireland final before being edged out by Galway. At senior level, Dublin haven't won a Leinster title since 1961 and, this year, they must beat Laois on Sunday just to earn the right to meet Kilkenny in the semi-final. If they win on Sunday - and that's a big if - their season will almost certainly end the next day.

Down the scale, however, foundations are being laid that may make Dublin consistently competitive at senior level for the first time in decades. The hurling development programmes, which began four years ago under the direction of the Dublin Coaching and Games Committee, are trying to bring together pieces of a jigsaw that before now had been spread around haphazardly.

Without doubt, these will be the most significant steps in developing a more cohesive Dublin hurling scene for the future. According to Tom Fitzpatrick, who currently manages the county under-16 squad, this is the sort of plan necessary to eliminate the frequent loss of players, to improve the transition between the various grades, and to turn out a more skilful and confident hurler - all factors so absent in the past that Dublin were blinded in their progression.

"What we have now are squads of 42 players at both under-16 and under-17 level, which started off from trials of about 144 players at under-14," says Fitzpatrick. "They all revolve around new trials every three months and it gives the kids a huge incentive to stay in the game.

"And already the knock-on effect has been very positive. In the past you'd have clubs not renowned for hurling not even bothering to send young players to the trials. Right now, at under-16, some of our best hurlers don't even come from the traditional hurling clubs of say Ballyboden St Enda's or O'Toole's. We have players now from the likes of Ballinteer St John's. That's a significant change."

Fitzpatrick can only look forward to the trickle-on effects this will have at senior level. "Next year you will have a minor side that has been training together for a number of years," he says. "That's a benefit that will spin off at senior level." Paidi O'Neill, the minor manager of 1996 and '97 and under-21 manager for the last two years, has seen up front the problems faced by the recent minor squads moving into the under-21 ranks and subsequent senior teams.

"If you get three or four players to move on to the seniors you're doing well," he says. "That's about the average anywhere. But what Dublin lack as well is a consistent supply of good minors coming through. Then there's the lack of some sort of father figure here when the players get to senior level, someone to sort of pull them along. That's so important because the confidence factor at that level is huge."

Of his '96 minor team, the likes of Tomas McGrane and Daragh Spain are the only obvious ones to come through to senior level. Others, like Declan Conlon and Shane Ryan, have gone full time into football. Then there were those who were just not up to it at senior level or were hindered by injury.

"I've never seen a Dublin hurling side lose a game because of lack of fitness," adds O'Neill. "It's more the inability to play at speed, the lack of real ball skills. The focus with players has to be on the game itself, something lacking at club level because of poor competition."

The solution to that, suggests O'Neill, may require something radical. "It's probably time for the Dublin club scene to be re-organised in a Leinster context. The structure here is just too outdated. Take Ballyboden St Enda's, for example. We're sick of playing Faughs. It's just as quick these days to get to Kilkenny as to other parts of Dublin, and I think that's a situation to be looked at closely."

Another problem is that the current under-21 manager, Mick Dempsey, was appointed just under a month ago. That has left a gap of over six months since O'Neill stepped down, and suggests that the under-21 panel should also come under the development programmes in order to complete the road to senior level.

For Jim Boggan, back this year as joint-manager of the minor side, differences are already obvious compared to the previous years he spent in charge between 1983-88, including that All-Ireland final in 1983.

"There was one interesting element to that team," he says. "The minor football side were beaten in their first match that year, and that meant the dual players, of which there were a lot, could totally concentrate on the hurling.

"Of course you still have problems in Dublin with young lads wanting to play football, and who see the football team as the main objective to get involved in at the top level. In the case of this year, there is at least one player concentrating on minor football who is actually a better hurler. But I'm hopeful we'll see a more even split in the future."

In the last number of years, people sat down to train minor teams in a very short timescale, doing the best they could. Now that has changed.

"This year, we have four of five players who have come through the under-16 and under-17 development squads," says Boggan. "So the situation now where you have a panel at under-14 level, to develop over four years, can only bring improvement, and certainly give reasons to be optimistic about the future."

Any breakthrough at senior level would obviously be huge, says Boggan, and something he believes can be done within the next four years.

Since September, Fitzpatrick has helped distributed just under 10,000 hurleys to 62 primary schools in the county - a 100 percent increase on the 1995 figure and just one indication that the numbers playing are increasing. "What I really want to see wiped out is that awful psychological barrier, where Dublin players would start shivering when they came up against the black and amber on occasions in the past.

"These programmes haven't been tested yet, but in the next three of four years it must show some results. It has been a very commendable investment by the county board and I think the game is making major inroads in the city. The hope now is that they can bring some sort of honour to Dublin in the near future."

Dublin v Laois, Nowlan Park, Sunday, 3.30.