February 26th last dawned sullen and unpromising and steady sheets of rain softened the south east. At noon, a number of groundsmen walked across Walsh Park and considered switching that afternoon's National Hurling League game against Wexford over to Dungarvan. The turf was playable - just. As the match began, Waterford's Dan Shanahan settled himself onto the wooden bench among the other substitutes and sat impassively as the two teams flailed away in the mud, the horizon blackening as all hope of true hurling was washed away. The contest quickly established itself as an old-fashioned slug-out, with the visitors appearing to adapt to the situation more readily.

Grim though the vista was, Shanahan would rather have been a participant than an observer but he knew he had little to complain about; first game out, against Derry, he wasn't himself and Gerald McCarthy had dropped him for this one.

With little over a quarter hour to go, though, he got the nod from his manager and took up the hurley. Sure-footed and combative, he forced his personality on a match that was just about staying afloat, scorching downfield to drill a point which revived Waterford's aspirations. They plundered the game with a late goal.

"I remember him coming in all right," reflects Wexford manager Joachim Kelly. "He is one of those lads that is a great motivating force for the players around him. He's good in the air and strong and tends to make plays that lift a team. He certainly did that day."

Fast forward a fortnight to Kilkenny's Nowlan Park, the wooden bleachers warmed by sunlight, and shirtsleeves rolled up. The game delayed for 15 minutes to accommodate the ambling latecomers. It was, all thing considered, a nicer day for Dan Shanahan to spend on the bench. After 19 minutes, though, with Kilkenny flourishing thanks to a surprising and beautiful opening act, Shanahan found himself rushing to the disaster scene once more.

"I suppose there is less pressure on you going in like that, although it can be hard to adjust to the flow of the game," he says. "But if the ball falls for you early, it can be easier to settle."

Against Kilkenny, he joined a team in the midst of a nightmare, 1-7 adrift after 25 minutes and seemingly stricken with inertia. He landed the team's first score and they promptly woke up a bit, with Paul Flynn firing three late frees as Waterford won. Later Kilkenny's Brian Cody would opine that those early scores sunk them more than Waterford's late encore. Either way, the visitors' growing resolve seemed to hypnotise Kilkenny and when Shanahan lashed a goal with 10 minutes remaining, erasing the once-yawning lead which Kilkenny had crafted, the tale was told. He has started all of Waterford's subsequent games, but his impact as a substitute was such that McCarthy must regularly have to quell the temptation to leash his thunder, to restrain Shanahan on the bench until the chips are down.

"Yeah, he mentioned that to me on a few occasions and you can see the advantages of bringing people in like that," says the player. "But we have a strong panel and there are a lot of lads capable of making a big difference when they are brought in. Naturally enough, I love to start and, thankfully, I have been picked for Sunday's semi-final and want to ensure I justify that."

The Lismore man burst onto the Waterford scene with a perfect sense of timing, claiming a place in McCarthy's emerging team in 1998, when they marched to the All-Ireland semi-finals. Such was the belief in the squad that year that they still talk about that summer as an All-Ireland final opportunity spurned.

Those who knew Shanahan as a youngster in Lismore found it perfectly natural that he should be there for the great days, hair shorn and features flushed, battling away in the thick of it. "Shanahan?" repeats Brother James Dormer, who coached him in primary school. "I remember him playing on a Feile na Gael team back in 1988 when he was 10. This was an under-14 tournament but he had no trouble. He was always strong, confident, a natural hurler. It would have been apparent from a very young age that he had something which would set him apart."

He quickly established a reputation for claiming places on teams way before his time. While still a 15-year-old, he was delivering cameo roles for the under-21s. The same season, with Dave Bennett and Brendan Landers, he starred on a Lismore CBS team which won the Kinnane Cup.

A year later, he came on as a substitute for the Lismore senior team in the county final against Passage, which Lismore took by a single point.

"It's the usual story, I've been hurling for as long as I can remember," he says. "I honestly can't imagine my life without it, it is impossible to imagine what I might be doing. To be honest, the time has passed quickly since I broke through to the Waterford senior set up. I think after losing so narrowly in 1998 we never really recovered last year, we were sort of stunned.

"The thing was that our supporters were there the for us, never lost faith. I really think they are worth an extra point to us every time we go out. But there is a feeling that we are starting to recapture a little of the old form now. This team is really pulling together, it's about playing for one another and there are no personality issues. It's a really positive period."

The enthusiasm with which Waterford greeted their series of league raids inevitably raised a few eyebrows around the country. It is hardly fashionable to announce one's passion for league fare, but Waterford have remained refreshingly unabashed in the pleasure they have taken thus far.

"Of course all this is going to count for nothing if we can't do it against Tipperary in the championship," says Shanahan. "Yes, the league is about championship preparation to that extent. But I would love to win a league medal before that time. Management really drilled that home to us, the fact that league final opportunities don't come around every year. So we'll be going for this."

Last time Waterford played tomorrow's opponents, Galway, they danced around the Connacht side in the All-Ireland quarterfinal of 1998.

"They never really got firing that day but they have so much talent. It's going to be hard but we'll just have to see if we can keep the run going," Shanahan comments. "From my own point of view, I just want to keep contributing, be that through scores or winning ball and making scores for the other lads. As long as the result works out, it doesn't really matter for me."

And as for the substitute heroics, well, the cape is on the bench.