A deep contentment has settled over Kerry as Sam Maguire spends Christmas in the Kingdom for the first time in eight years.
Their anointed one, David Clifford, is king of all he surveys. Were Kerry the kind of place where you were allowed rest on one All-Ireland win, then you might say he had no more worlds to conquer. Kerry is not a 'To Win Just Once' sort of environment.
But Marc Ó Sé, one of the chief football analysts on GAAGO's coverage for 2023, is wary of the recently deposed empire re-grouping.
"I think we (Kerry) have a great chance, the fact that you win one, it gives fellas a huge boost, it gives fellas an experience that they want more. But it doesn't just happen as easily as that.
"You cast your mind back to the semi-final and final, moments in those games...like, had Seanie O'Shea not kicked that point, you were looking at extra-time.
"Would Kerry have got over the Dubs in that extra-time period? They are questions that you'd definitely be wondering about.
"The final against Galway, that free kick down in the corner, hugely controversial call, went Kerry's way and they got a point. That for me was the key moment in that game.
"I think this is going to be a very exciting year in 2023. I think the Dubs with the two new fellas back, that's going to really bolster their chances of winning. I don't buy into this thing where they....they definitely have been in decline.
"But there's players there (in Dublin). And when you bring in an extra player or two, there's players there that can win an All-Ireland for sure."
Kerry tend to count their barren stretches in dog years. An eight year gap without an All-Ireland title - their second longest since the foundation of the State - was intolerable. It could be regarded as arrogance, this tendency to regard five-year patches without All-Irelands as unacceptable torment. On the flipside, they generally celebrate All-Ireland titles with a stately reserve that most neutrals, save for those in Cork, are inclined to give them a pass.
We're reminded of the so-called 'Juventus style', insisted upon by their aristocratic late President Gianni Agnelli, which decreed that players and teams must maintain the run of themselves in victory and not play the victim in defeat (not a philosophy that ever caught on in Argentina). Kerry have generally adhered to that, though there was plenty of lip-biting after their series of losses to Ulster opposition in the 2000s.
The eight-year 'famine' was long enough for Ó Sé to wonder would he ever get a photograph with himself and his six-year-old son and the Cup.
"Something we all had growing up, myself and my three brothers, we had photographs with the Sam Maguire. It was there the whole time back then. In 2016, I wanted a photograph of my small fella in the cup and didn't get it. In 2019, you're wondering, 'Jeez, will we ever get it?'"
They haven't always had the happiest time in the third year of the decade. In '82, there was the Seamus Darby goal, which cast a sorry pall over the five-in-a-row celebrations. In '92, there was the infamous Munster final loss to Clare when Jack O'Shea's glorious inter-county career ended on a jarring note. In 2002, we had Joe Kernan cracking his runners-up plaque off the Croker dressing room wall and in 2012, Jack O'Connor's second stint ended with a quarter-final exit to Donegal.
2022 was a different story. It will assuredly be recalled as David Clifford's year. In addition to his All-Ireland, Munster and Allianz League titles, he finishes as Footballer of the Year and holds the Man of the Match award from the All-Ireland final.
There's also the small matter of the Kerry county championship victory, where he lit up the final for East Kerry. Below that, his Fossa side are currently in the All-Ireland junior semi-final. If not for a Sigerson Cup final loss back in the darkness of mid February, he'd have the full set.
"I was on the wrong end of him this year," notes Ó Sé. "I was training Listry, we got to the county final against Fossa. We'd beaten them in the group stage in their own home patch in Fossa, David and Paudie were playing.
"(Eamonn) Fitzmaurice was involved with Fossa and I said it to him afterwards, I said I hope we don't come across you again this year and we met them in the final in Fitzgerald Stadium.
"We were winning coming down the stretch and David, ironically enough, was going for a point and he kicked the ball short, in towards the goal, and Paudie was there and he fisted the ball into the goal. It went to extra-time and they beat us and now they're in the All-Ireland semi-final.
"Look, everything he's doing...everything he touches turns to gold really at the moment. I've been lucky enough to have played with the Gooch, I've marked Maurice Fitzgerald in county championship games.
"But, for me, what I have seen coming from this fella, it's just on another level completely. His point kicking in particular is just frightening. If I wanted a fella to get a goal for me, all day long it would be the Gooch.
"What he could do with a ball was unbelievable but in terms of kicking the ball over the bar, I've never seen anything like what David Clifford is doing.
"And like, if you look at him, if you stand next to him, he's a big, big guy, he's six-foot three so you have a bit of Donaghy and Gooch all rolled into one really because you've got this big target man inside. He's got both feet, he can win his own ball, we're just so lucky he's from Kerry.
"The thing about them is they're just very down to earth people. I work with their uncle, Fergus, and I know their Dad, Dermot, and they're just genuine down to earth GAA people.
"There was talk a few years ago that he was going to Australia and AFL. That was never going to happen. These people are born and bred GAA. David Clifford was born to win All-Irelands. He's fulfilling that now."
Small tweaks got them over the line in 2022.
Jack O'Connor was re-hired in a hurry in the late autumn of 2021. His career is a severe repudiation of the maxim 'you should never go back'. But for some outlandish attacking faux pas against Tyrone, Peter Keane might have got over the line in 2021. Now, Jacko would be in position to deliver the crown again, his fourth as manager and third time he had done so in the first year after his appointment. His strike rate is now almost the equal of Mick O'Dwyer.
"Jack has a lot of time now on his hands because he's retired and he's solely focused on the Kerry job and he's able to get around to individual players and chat to them and man-manage players really," says Ó Sé, who won three of his five All-Ireland titles under O'Connor's management.
"That's something he has done through the years, man-manage players and talk to players about their roles on the team and all of that.
"I would just say he's demanding. The first year that he came in, in '04, I was on the bench, having played the previous two years. Because we were involved with the club in the club final, we were gone until Paddy's Day. So it was only after that that we came in, it took me a few months to get back into the team. He creates a bit of competition as well. That's what you want.
"I think a good manager will bring in good people around him, he has done that down through the years, bringing in the likes of Pat Flanagan, bringing in Eamonn Fitzmaurice, bringing back quality players as well."
O'Connor's most high profile underling in 2022 was one of the architects of their downfall in 2003, Tyrone-born Paddy Tally, who subsequently built a big reputation as a Sigerson Cup winning manager with St Mary's (Belfast) and an influential backroom figure in Galway's resurgence in 2018.
In Ó Sé's playing days, the thought of hiring a renowned defensive guru from Ulster to coach the county team would have made Kerry football people gag. But the game has evolved, sweepers and the like have made the journey from taboo to orthodox. There has long been a deep seam of pragmatism in Kerry football, in any event, and O'Connor didn't hesitate to bring Tally on board.
"The word from the camp is that he was a breath of fresh air, outstanding, a very interesting coach who kept the players on his toes and players really enjoyed it," says Ó Sé.
"If you have a situation like that where you have a new innovative coach coming in, and you have the raw materials, then I think it's a win-win. It's only after you win the All-Ireland that you hear the stories coming out of the camp or whatever, the stories were all positive, that they really enjoyed training under him."
As for the controversial free, alluded to unprompted by Ó Sé early on, when Galway centre back John Daly was penalised in possession with the scores tied at 0-16 apiece, the former Kerry defender acknowledges their good fortune. But, he says, these have a habit of even-ing out in the long run.
"I didn't think it was a free. I thought it was a free out," says Ó Sé, very definitely.
"That's what I thought but do you know what, in games like that sometimes you get the rub of the green. Kerry definitely got the rub of the green there. All these things have a way of, like, what's the word, levelling out.
"I was involved in games here, I remember the '16 semi-final against Dublin, we should have got a free down the other end, I think Kevin McManamon was involved (hit Peter Crowley)....Peter Crowley, yeah, and we didn't get the rub of the green, that's how it works, you get it the next day and we got it there."
