Dublin are in a "challenging" time in the wake of high-profile retirements, according to Enda McGinley, but the ex-Tyrone player argues that the new rules could suit a team in transition.
Dessie Farrell's side overturned an 11-point half-time deficit to secure a first win in Tralee in over 40 years, the rousing comeback being aided by a gale force wind.
The victory lifts Dublin onto four points in the Division 1 table, with two wins from three, their sole defeat coming away to pace-setters Donegal in Ballybofey.
Notwithstanding the landmark triumph in Tralee, McGinley reckons they are still in an awkward place heading into the 2025 championship season.
"They are in a difficult place, I think," the three-time All-Ireland winner said on the RTÉ GAA podcast.
"Whenever you have such a turnover of established players... like every team has lost some older players and that's part of the natural turning of the wheel but it's the players Dublin have lost.
"Not only that but the level of expectation and the level of achievement that those new players have to somehow measure up to.
"I think that in Dessie, they have the right man in charge. His work with the U20s, U21s, the fact that he's well used to working with those younger players. I think the younger players will feel confident that he knows what their level is.
"Dublin are a good team, they are going to be one of the top seven, eight teams in the country. If things go right for them, they'll be there or thereabouts.
"They're coming through a province where there's a couple of teams starting to show they're making progress. Some more local provincial competition will really help them bed in. Whereas other teams get a really good test in the provincial championships, Dublin have lacked that in previous years. I think they need that test."
While their imperial phase in the latter half of the 2010s is an increasingly distant memory and they are now merely another member of Gaelic football's elite, McGinley feels the sweeping rule changes could actually benefit the new crop.
The expert game management that was a hallmark of the later Jim Gavin teams is much harder to impose in the new dispensation. In McGinley's estimation, this lessens the premium on experience at the highest level and could wind up suiting a team in Dublin's situation.
"The ability to manage a game, the ability to control a game, the ability through sheer ruthless, boring decision-making to strangle the life out of a game - those things are much, much reduced in the new rules. And I think that gives a new young Dublin team a chance.
"From my point of view, Dublin are in a challenging time because of the sheer quality of the players they've lost.
"But the new rules give a freshness and openness and a strangeness to the game that actually suits a team in that phase. "
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