Kerry and Dublin ready to rumble again in Tralee

Regardless of the time of year, there is something compelling when old rivals Dublin and Kerry cross paths.

A bitterly cold and wet week in February will be illuminated by the latest instalment of the GAA's most prestigious fixture.

Even the all-consuming talk around the new rules are likely to be parked for a little while in Tralee tonight. Very little tangible is on the line, yet the post-mortems will be thorough, with conclusions drawn and evidence to be used right up until the business end of the season.

There is a growing sense, through a combination of a huge changing of the guard in Dublin and Kerry’s failure to land more than one All-Ireland title in the last decade, that this game has been moved off-Broadway somewhat.

Dublin’s cast has suddenly shrunk. Brian Fenton and James McCarthy are gone, Jack McCaffrey and Paul Mannion may well have played their last games, John Small’s future is unclear, while Stephen Cluxton at least, is set to return. Whatever way you slice that up, the X-factor with the Dubs is not where it once was.

Kerry too feel in need of a little rejuvenation. When David Clifford made his long-awaited senior debut in 2018, it was hoped within the Kingdom that a new rivalry with Dublin would ensue as well as regular visits to the winner’s enclosure. Returning with Sam on just one occasion in that period indicates that the second part of that ambition has fallen rather flat.

Kerry’s underwhelming display in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final was at least one step further than Dessie Farrell managed with the Dubs, who couldn’t offer sufficient resistance to Galway’s second-half surge.

Even allowing for the personnel changes inflicted on Farrell, and the fact that in-form Crokes forward Micheál Burns