Two seasons in, it’s already time to make the comparisons.
With the greats. The legends.
When Éamonn Fitzmaurice took the reins of the Kingdom, it sat dormant in the most un-Kerry-like fashion.
Modern football was threatening to leave the greatest county in Ireland behind as a new breed of athleticism and tactics took the game head-first in a drastic and complete new direction.
Almost five years had passed without Sam Maguire making that familiar trek back down the road to Killarney – a near drought in that corner of the world.
One man came along and changed everything.
Éamonn Fitzmaurice came in and lifted Kerry off its knees.
He shook it up. He breathed new life back into the county, different life, and he forced it to move with the times.
His decisions weren’t popular. The public were kept out of training sessions. Forwards were drifting back across the half way line. Kerry had finally caught up.
They wouldn’t be left out in the cold anymore. They wouldn’t be losing out in Munster, being left behind at quarter final stages out of nothing else but a near arrogance that they didn’t have to do the work that every other side was doing.
There was almost a reluctance to buy in to the new wave of football – of systems and fitness – because they were Kerry and what they do is play the game. And, generally, they play it better than everyone else.
It took Fitzmaurice though to get them back on a level playing field so they could express themselves once more.
No-one’s safe from the chop.
If they don’t fit the system, if they’re not putting the work in, they don’t play. If they don’t suit the opposition, they don’t play.
Kerry are lining out for the 2015 All-Ireland final without their captain and without an Ó Sé. Because Fitzmaurice and his singleness of thought has no room for tradition or sentiment. He thinks about how he can win a game, and he prepares his team so.
People bemoaned the final last year. Why? Because it wasn’t a great watch. Because Kerry set up in a way to win it. That’s all that matters.
Had the manager not gone against the grain and out-thought Donegal, they’d still be waiting for their first title since 2009. But he did. He does.
Dublin, though, pose an entirely different threat.
It’s all well and good setting up – and doing it brilliantly – to stop Murphy and McFadden, or Aidan O’Shea and O’Connor, but this is six forwards. Six deadly ones on their day. This is a whole team of fast, strong, direct attackers that could hurt Kerry from all over the pitch.
And the only way the Kingdom can conquer the capital is to shut them down. Completely.
They did what they had to against Donegal, even Cork this year, but to beat Dublin would require a whole new extreme.
It would require 70 minutes of stifling work, men getting back in defence relentlessly and hitting them on the break. If Fitzmaurice has Kerry prepared for that, if they’re ready for it and if they can see it through, it wouldn’t just be a landmark performance from a team and a manager consistently breaking the mould. From a county that’s not supposed to play that way.
It would be one of the finest feats of all time.
In an era where it is no longer just about football, Éamonn Fitzmaurice has restored the pride of Kerry when they initially scoffed at him. He has dragged them up to speed and he has overtaken most of them already.
And if he could beat Dublin, beat the best team designed for this modern game on the biggest day of the calendar, he won’t just secure an unlikely back-to-back success of All-Ireland glory from relatively nowhere, he will have done it against the odds and against the grain. And against everyone who said he couldn’t.
He’ll have done it his own way. What is now the Kerry way. The winning way.
