He wasn't on the face of it an obvious manager. After a long playing career, rippling with commitment but scarred by almost ceaseless injury, Larry Tompkins was highly respected as a footballer and athlete and particularly for his commitment but . . . .

Many would have characterised him as somewhat distant, a loner, driven by the thoughts of winning - probably to a greater extent than anyone else in the Cork set-up, with the exception of manager Billy Morgan whose assumption of office coincided with Tompkins's return from the US and arrival in Cork.

Quick shorthand must suffice here. A talented under-age player from Kildare who played with the Wicklow vocational schools, Tompkins graduated to the Kildare seniors but fell out with the county board over the refunding of a transatlantic airfare.

Having fallen in with some other emigrants from the Castlehaven club when he was in New York, he decided to come back with them to Cork. A stream of football success ensued. Two county titles with Castlehaven, two All-Irelands with Cork - including captaining the county to the second leg of the double nine years ago - would bear that out.

It wasn't just the success, the on-field importance, the place-kicking acumen which rescued two championship matches in 1987. It was the intense commitment, the savage desire for fitness and - frequently - painful rehabilitation. How does someone like that reach the wavelengths of less driven individuals?

The answer underpins the remarkable progress made by Cork this season, the unbeaten march which led to the League title in May and the rising championship challenge which climaxes tomorrow. Tompkins has found - or believes he has - a collective with the same dynamic as himself.

"Even more," he says. "You can't beat a guy that wants to do it, that wants to succeed and wants to win an All-Ireland medal. You can't beat that guy. Give me that guy any day. He will out-battle the guy that maybe is that bit better at doing things. You can't beat the guy who is totally and utterly focused on one thing in life and that's to win.

"To find out if they have it, it might be hard, difficult or ruthless - sick in ways, however you want to describe it. But there is no point in finding out in May or June.

"Acceptance can gather momentum when you're successful - when you're winning Munster championships. It's easy then to get the momentum but I'm looking back to December or February and the winter nights and the dark and cold, wet and wind and snow. You're battling through the muck and the gutter. Those are the nights that I look around and wonder, `is he totally committed to this?'.

"Guys have excuses, reasons, genuine reasons maybe, but maybe at times - and you might laugh when I say this - I was a little bit too soft in certain ways. You're either in or out. There's no shortcuts to winning an All-Ireland."

Now in his third year of management with the Cork footballers, Tompkins could be said to have at last created his own team. It is noticeable for the absence of hitherto recognised names. None of the side has a senior All-Ireland and only Ciaran O'Sullivan, Joe Kavanagh and Don Davis survive from the last final, only six years ago.

Stephen O'Brien who won All-Irelands in 1989 and '90 isn't there and Mark O'Connor, an established full back until this year, is on the bench. There are reasonable explanations, according to Tompkins.

"Mark is a great player, Steven is a great player and they've contributed enormously to Cork football over the years. It was just from Steven's point of view he got injured and was struggling. Mark O'Connor, on the other hand, lost form a little bit and lost his place. He's back playing well again and has knuckled down well."

Yet it's known in Cork that Larry's personality wouldn't quite tally with the same players, just as it didn't with Colin Corkery, the former All Star and county top scorer, who has quit the county game altogether. Naturally the manager disagrees.

"Personalities wouldn't come into it. If a player is good enough and has the commitment at this level, well there's not a problem. At the end of the day there's people who'd do this job and they might come in and select a different team. That's their choice.

"We looked for a few qualities. There's no personality clashes with anybody. We feel we've been fair with everybody. I can walk down the street in the morning and tell anyone: `you were given a fair crack of the whip'."

Cork's success to date has been a surprise because Tompkins had suffered a bruising first two years in management. Defeat by Clare in 1997, a few weeks after losing the League final to Kerry, he dismisses - "Seventeen wides and beaten by a last-minute goal. It was a freak". The following year's championship exit, in Killarney against Kerry, was tinged with controversy.

Tompkins was recalled to the field and played centre forward but to little effect. He had stepped down as team manager to facilitate this selection, a kind of tortuous protocol to distance himself from the idea. Does he regret it now?

"I don't. Not one bit. Any day that you're selected - and I had nothing to do with it, the selectors came to me and my form was good for the club at the time - to wear the county jersey, you treat it as an honour. I felt I'd something to contribute to the team and didn't want the opportunity to slip if that was the case.

"It's a toss of a coin between Cork and Kerry. We scored a goal and I thought we had the game won but Kerry got a goal. I don't think there was much between us. Kildare got to the All-Ireland final last year but I would have been very confident going against Kildare. We weren't a million miles off it last year, I didn't need an awful lot to get it right."

This year the plan has come together. The League win was followed by a Munster final defeat of Kerry in July and a comfortable win over Mayo in last month's semi-final. His new defence has been the most impressive unit in the championship, his largely unknown centrefield has got by and the attack has been improving.

Success has again raised Tompkins's profile in his adopted county. Last year he moved back into the pub business after a gap of a few years. His life is in Cork, despite rumours down the years that he was about to decamp and move back home. Last summer, however, he rediscovered the tug of home.

"Last year when Kildare were doing well, I was at the Leinster final and All-Ireland semi-final. Like it was funny, it was a feeling. Coming out after the Leinster final when they'd won it walking up the street, I couldn't believe it.

"You still have that bit of a feeling for them. Yet here I was in Cork and my mother telling me about the atmosphere at home. And I never thought I'd see it. We had suffered so many bad defeats, so many disappointments and here was Kildare in an All-Ireland final. It was emotional."

Emotionalism is an unexpected admission given Tompkins's austere zealotry and undimmed focus on the mechanics of achievement. He doesn't altogether agree with the characterisation of himself as a ruthless driver of men and for all the constant emphasis on winning, he chooses an unusual epitaph.

"The most satisfying thing is if I walk out of the job in the morning is that I can say: I did it my way. I've wanted guys who were totally and utterly committed to the cause and I gave everybody a fair crack of the whip."