Conor Cleary was perched in the upper tier of the Hogan Stand when Clare beat Cork in the 2013 All-Ireland final replay.
He joined the panel in 2014 - an inopportune year to get drafted in, perhaps - and finally established himself as a regular first team starter in the league winning campaign of 2016.
It's been a long road to a first All-Ireland final appearance for the 30-year-old defender from Miltown-Malbay - a football stronghold in west Clare.
In that span, there's been no fewer than five Munster final defeats, as well as a couple of bitter semi-final losses to Kilkenny in 2022 and 2023.
At half-time in this year's semi-final, it seemed for all the world that the same script was about to be enacted for a third time. But Brian Lohan's side mounted a terrific final-quarter surge to overhaul the Leinster champions to propel themselves into a first decider since that day in September 2013.
"I came into the panel in 2014, we won the league in '16, got to Munster finals in '17 and '18," Cleary tells RTÉ Sport.
"We had a few lean years after that. In those lean years in '19, '20, '21, you're thinking will them days ever come around, because there was huge effort being put in.
"There's great maturity in the team now. A lot of the team that played in the 2017/18 Munster finals would still be around. That maturity brings a sense that these games won't be around forever, you have to make the most of them when you get them.
"The last two years up in Croke Park, we've been deservedly beaten by a really good Kilkenny team but it was nice to get over the line the last day."
A further boost arrived the following day as five-in-a-row chasing Limerick - whose aura of invincibility had loomed over the entire championship since the turn of the decade - were sensationally taken out of the reckoning by Cork.
While the Rebels instantly assumed the status of the championship's form team, they nonetheless would seem a more manageable task for Clare, who've beaten them three years running in the Munster championship.
This year's Munster SHC meeting in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in April was unquestionably the most memorable encounter in recent years, a thriller played out in an atmosphere of suffocating tension with both sides having lost on the opening weekend.
Clare eked out a win in a dizzingly high-scoring game, greatly helped by Sean O'Donoghue's second-half sending off. Cork were thought to be dead and buried after that loss but as Cleary points out, there's a lot of water under the bridge since then.
"That feels like an awful long time ago now," says the Clare captain.
"We know that day we beat them in the championship, they got a man sent off in the second half and that kind of turned the tide in our favour.
"We took control of the game after that and if they had 15 players on the field, it could have been a different story.
"Since that championship meeting, I think the two teams have progressed an awful lot.
"Any team that beats that Limerick team, not once but twice, during the year is a really, really good team. They've weapons all over the field.
"We think we've improved but they've definitely improved."
Stationed at full-back, Cleary will have to contend with what is perceived to be Cork's strongest line, their inside forward line, where Brian Hayes, Alan Connolly and legendary Patrick Horgan have racked up huge scores - with Hayes in particular causing havoc against Limerick.
"You play hurling to be tested," says Cleary. "You play hurling to play against the best players. And they are probably the form full-forward line in the country this year."
Cleary captained the side to the league title in April and is hoping to be only the third Clare captain to lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup after Anthony Daly and Pat Donnellan - the Cup was first awarded in 1923, nine years after Clare's only other All-Ireland.
A half-back earlier in his Clare career, Cleary has slotted in at full-back under Lohan, himself one of the most celebrated No 3s in the history of the sport.
Lohan formed the defensive spine of the team alongside Seanie McMahon at centre-back for the 1995 and 1997 All-Ireland victories and Cleary says his experience of hurling's biggest day is invaluable especially to those players who missed out on 2013.
"From Brian's experience as a player himself in the 90s, he's given us a good grounding, reminding us that whatever game you play, you're going out to play a game.
"Even though the next day is a big day - it's a big day for families and supporters - our main focus is going to be what our job is, what our task is. And just to get the best out of ourselves on the day.
"Even though there will be a lot of noise around the thing, we're very aware that we've a job to do, and that's to play a game on the day."
Watch the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final, Cork v Clare, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
