There's an uneasy feeling for small ball followers in the capital ahead of Sunday's Leinster round-robin clash between Dublin and Kilkenny.
The Dubs are being talked up as favourites in some quarters. Even allowing for Kilkenny's form in 2026, it seems almost unbelievable.
While Dublin have a decent record against the other big hitters in the province - Galway and Wexford - their record against the Cats can only be described as abysmal.
Since the Yellowbellies beat Kilkenny in 2017, they've managed a further four championship wins over their neighbours to the west, as well as a draw.
Galway, meanwhile, have beaten Kilkenny five times in that period, including last month's 15-point thumping in Pearse Stadium.
And while the Dubs have only lost once to Wexford in championship since 2008, and have beaten Galway in four of their last seven championship encounters, their record against Kilkenny reads: 0 wins and 11 defeats since their last triumph.
That came back in 2013, when an unfancied Dublin side got over the line against the Cats, after a replay, in the Leinster semi-final.
If you go back further to their last win in 1942, the sides have met 49 times in championship since, with Kilkenny winning 44 times, and the counties drawing on four occasions, three of which came in the 1950s.
Dublin and Kilkenny's modern relationship isn't so much a rivalry as a procession; the two teams show up at a given venue, and the Dubs lose. If it's possible to call the most successful county in the history of the game a "bogey team" for anyone, then they're a bogey team for Dublin.
Johnny McCaffrey was the Metropolitans' skipper back in 2013, but even he remembers that the win only arrived after they shipped big defeats in the previous two years in games they were expected to be competitive in.
"The year before there was a massive hype about the game," he told RTÉ Sport this week.
"We'd won the league the year before in 2011, and they'd beaten us in the Leinster final that same year.
"We had a good year in 2011, and we were looking to follow it up with a good year in 2012.
"It was down in Portlaoise and there was a massive crowd at it. There was a lot of talk in the week leading up to the game that Dublin were going to take Kilkenny out, that they were on the way down."
That's not how it transpired. Instead, a Kilkenny side with the bit between the teeth demolished the Dubs by 18 points, with the sky blues managing just three points in the second half.
Eddie Brennan was baffled by the performance of Anthony Daly's side and suggested on the following night's Sunday Game highlights show that the team "looked laboured" in the defeat.
"We were outclassed that day," concurs McCaffrey. "Kilkenny really did a number on us, and beat us from minute one really."
So how did a side beaten by 11 points in the 2011 Leinster final, and then 18 points in the following year's semi-final, turn the tables?
"Anthony Daly had us brainwashed a little bit," says Conal Keaney, who scored a point on that famous afternoon in Portlaoise.
"We thought that we were better than we were, and that probably stood to us a lot in those games. Not every game against Kilkenny, but specifically that year.
"We didn't fear playing them, we actually enjoyed playing them to really test ourselves, to see where we were at."
What made that 2013 victory all the more impressive was that it came after a replay.
Twice the first day Dublin led late on but Kilkenny pegged them back. Naturally, the wise money was the Cats for the replay with the Dubs having missed their chance.
"Fair play to our manager at the time," Keaney continues.
"He just flipped it on its head, saying they're lucky to be playing us again. So straight away, our mindset changed.
"We were lucky to get some of the breaks on the day to get over the line but ultimately, we didn't fear playing them as we would have done many a time before.
"It meant that we were free and we could express ourselves. We just kept saying, 'what's the worst that could happen? We're going to get beaten, so, we might as well give this a crack'."
And so we come to this weekend's game, and the fact that Kilkenny will make the journey to Parnell Park having never lost a game there in championship. Indeed, they last lost to the Dubs at a Dublin venue back in 1941, and that was at Croke Park.
Eighty-five years ago.
McCaffrey says that, despite how things have been going, the Noresiders will fancy their chances in Donnycarney on Sunday.
"Dublin haven't beaten Kilkenny in championship since 2013 and they've only won two All-Irelands since then," he says.
"They've dominated Leinster, but they haven't been dominating the All-Irelands. Still, they've been able to beat us along the way.
"The lads won't be under any illusions, beating Kilkenny in any championship game, no matter what, is a massive, massive thing to do.
"Kilkenny are going to be coming to Parnell this weekend all guns blazing, knowing that they've got to get a result, so that's going to be a really difficult task for our lads.
"Playing at home is an advantage, but Kilkenny have bested Dublin there the last couple of times they've played in championship, so Kilkenny won't have any fear of coming up.
"It's a 50-50 game, there's not going to be much between them at all."
How might Dublin find that edge on Sunday?
For Keaney, the difference will be made upstairs, and he reckons that might be where the current Dublin crop can learn something for that 2013 vintage.
"It's all about mindset really," he says.
"If you go out expecting that these lads are much better than you, and they're going to beat you to every ball, that's nearly what's going to happen.
"Likewise, we used to always talk about steeling the mind to whatever's being said out there in the media, or your friends, or your family, or at work, or whatever it is.
"We were coming with a mission. Dalo kept saying the same things to us every single night of training, leading into that game, that we are equally as good as these guys, if not better.
"So it's just about going out and expressing that. It's never that easy, obviously, but that's a huge part of getting a performance.
"You're mentally ready for it, and mentally ready for the fight. You have to have the hurling, and you have to have the fitness, and everything goes with it.
"But 70% or 80% is definitely in your mind."
And what Westmeath did to the Dublin footballers last Sunday, a team that Ballyboden clubman Keaney also played for, might be something that inspires the Dublin hurlers this weekend.
"With this Dublin team, I don't think any of that scares them - I don't think they're worried about previous games, history, or anything like that," he continues.
"Very much like Westmeath, they're taking this year as it comes. Every game matters.
"They have a great squad. The lads they're bringing on off the bench are making massive impacts in the games.
"So, they have everything going for them for this weekend, for a big challenge ahead."
Watch a provincial hurling double-header, Dublin v Kilkenny (2pm) and Cork v Clare (4pm), on Sunday from 1.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch The Saturday Game and The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on all matches on the RTÉ News app and on rte.ie/sport
