Through the wind and the rain walked Kevin Kilbane. It was Thursday lunchtime, the downpour that had begun 36 hours earlier was still coming on strong. Sunderland resembled a Lowry painting. Grim? Even the dogs looked fed up.

Not so Kevin Kilbane. To the sheets of hail rain, Kilbane gave a hale high head. This has been a good week for the Sunderland winger. Last Saturday he scored his first goal for his new club since his u2.5 million Stg£2.5 million move from West Bromwich Albion in December. Then he bought a house in Durham, so he can leave the club flat. On Wednesday he was named in the Republic of Ireland squad for the Greece game in 10 days. This afternoon he will consolidate his Premiership player status when running out in front of 61,000 at Old Trafford, the biggest league stage in England. West Brom play Bolton.

"I know, that's it," Kilbane said with his smiling imperishable enthusiasm. "I don't think you can ever contemplate the situation you're in. It's dreams: Man U, Liverpool - and you're playing them every other week. It's a fantastic feeling." He tucked into his lunch.

Around him in the Sunderland canteen others did the same. Walking by they would mutter "bullshit" under a cough, or offer some abuse concerning Kilbane's talking talent. It is 15 weeks since he joined them. The appreciation that he is already one of them is mutual.

Fifteen weeks, 15 games: Sunderland victories? Four. Three of those have come in the past three Saturdays. Thus, after his five-minute debut appearance at home against Southampton the week before Christmas - one Kilbane cross, one Niall Quinn goal, one 2-0 win - came a sequence of 11 matches without victory. Sunderland were in freefall.

How come you spend u2.5£2.5 million on Kilbane and then the club goes from third to ninth in the table? This was a standard conversation in Sunderland, where memories are as selective as everywhere else. The not insignificant fact that Sunderland have not finished in the top half of the top flight since 1956 is part of the collective amnesia.

Fortunately the conversation was not one playing inside the head of Kilbane. Yet wingers are in the literal position of being closest to the crowd. At a tight venue like the Stadium of Light, Kilbane can hear more comment than, for example, a central midfielder. Gradually, as the bad run lengthened, more of it was directed at Kilbane. He was meant to be a free-scoring winger. But he had no goals.

"Every time I spoke to supporters, it was `oh, you'll get a goal this week'. Then it was `next week'. It was building up to bursting point and I felt I took a lot of stick at that Everton game. Thinking about it now, it was quite funny. We went on that run of games without a win and while I don't think they blamed me for it, I was starting to feel I was getting the blame for it. But we ended that at the Everton game. We were terrible and we got three points."

That was three weeks ago. Seven days later Kilbane won a penalty at The Dell - "I felt as if I'd done something" - and then last Saturday the free-scoring winger scored. "It was made for me by Quinny. I was so pleased. Relieved, definitely.

"I'd had chances, I'd hit the post, the bar, 'keepers had made great saves. It was fantastic. I felt as though I should have scored earlier. It's put it out of my mind." Not that the non-goal situation was preying on it, he insisted. Or the stick. "I'm man enough to take it."

And someone who turned 23 in February considers himself very much a man. "I've done a hell of a lot of growing up in the past two years. I look back at myself at 20 and think `I was a kid'."

The explanation for that is Kilbane was a kid. At 20 he was playing for Preston North End and living at home with his Achill Island and Longford-born parents in Preston. "I used to walk to the game. I lived about a quarter of a mile from the ground. I'd get up on a Saturday morning, have something to eat, then walk down to the game.

"It was good for me. I used to love it, talking to people on the way to the ground, straight from the street to the stadium really. It was fantastic. I made my debut at 18. At 18, it was great.

"Probably the biggest thing for me was moving out. It was harder leaving Preston (than West Brom) because it was a new experience for me. I had to get a house, my girlfriend moved with me. It was a totally different situation. Then I got married in the summer. But I've taken it all in my stride. When you look back, these are the enjoyable moments in your life."

From a pre-match glass of milk in mammy's parlour to marriage, mortgage and mornings with Peter Reid. In just over two years; no wonder Kilbane has matured. There have also been 10 internationals for the Republic and two transfers worth u3.5 million. £3.5 million.

The second of these, in December, was carried out without the knowledge, and hence the consent, of West Brom's manager Brian Little. Little departed the Hawthorns shortly after Kilbane.

"It was such a strange situation," Kilbane said. "The manager didn't even know he had sold one of his own players. We were due to play Grimsby on the Tuesday night. I got a phone call on the Monday night to say West Brom had sold me. The club hadn't officially told me and I went to get on the bus to Grimsby on the Tuesday expecting Brian Little to say: `We've sold you.' But he didn't know anything about it.

"So I sat on the bus all the way to Grimsby. We got to the hotel to have an afternoon sleep. I went to bed and I think Brian Little had a phone call then. It still wasn't official. He called me down and said: `Apparently the club has sold you. Do you know anything about this?' It was an embarrassing situation, for him and for me. The buck stops with him."

Little no longer knew where the buck was. It was an undignified episode even at a club financially desperate. The next day Kilbane joined Sunderland. He noticed the contrast.

At the Hawthorns Kilbane described the atmosphere as apprehensive: "We didn't sign any players in the summer, we'd had a bad end to last season, ticket sales were down, the week before the season started they sacked (then manager) Denis Smith" - whereas at Sunderland the first thing he found was: "The good buzz around. We have a good work ethic. The players all work hard for each other."

Then there is the stadium, the noise and the fanaticism. The latter, as Kilbane has experienced, can have a downside. But then the talk does not appear to faze him.

After his underwhelming debut for the Republic against Iceland, Kilbane was criticised heavily. "People said my international career was over. I was, like, 20 years old. I didn't play well and I know I didn't play well but now I think to myself: `bloody hell, I was 20 years old and I made my international debut.' Since I was a boy the only country I wanted to play for was Ireland. I can't complain."

Not then and not now. "You should just get on with it."