Since Cork City were relegated from the SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division at the end of the 2020 season, they have endured a frustrating existence with their last top-flight stay in the interim lasting just one season.
But with the firepower that manager Tim Clancy can call upon for 2025, there are hopes that the three-time league champions can set deeper roots in the Premier Division this time.
Former Republic of Ireland and Preston North End striker Sean Maguire and fellow forward Ruairí Keating both enjoyed prolific past spells at Cork respectively and having both rejoined City last summer, Clancy is counting on the duo to dovetail up front throughout the coming campaign after netting a combined 12 goals in the second half of last season's promotion push.
"The lads are really close off the pitch as well," Clancy said ahead of Friday's season opener at home to Galway United.
"Although they didn't play together, they have mutual friends which meant that they would have been speaking to each other for a lot of years.
"The relationship on the pitch? The benefit we had last year was we got the two of them in for the guts of four months at the end of the season and they played together.
"In pre-season so far, I think Keats has scored four or five goals and Seanie has got three or four as well.
"It's early, we haven't played the first league game yet but the lads are looking well. And we're hoping the relationship can grow from there."
Maguire still has plenty of gas in the tank at the age of 30 and while the days in which the striker won 11 senior international caps may be behind him, Clancy is in no doubt about the aura he brings on and off the pitch.
"He's still really driven," said the former St Patrick's Athletic and Drogheda United manager of Maguire.
"He wants to be successful back at Cork again, which is brilliant. We're trying to give him that platform for it to happen.
"I can have conversations with Seanie and I can ask him to row in behind certain things we're doing. The magnitude he has within the squad, when he speaks, the younger lads listen.
"We've a lot of young players that would cut their arm off to have the career Seanie has had. Twelve or so international caps, hundreds of games in the Championship in England. He's been really, really good for us. Not just on the pitch and in training but also around the group as well. We've a lot of younger lads and he's been excellent."
To load the ammunition for his front two, Clancy will be leaning on a mix of youth, like teenager Cathal O'Sullivan and the newly-arrived Alex Nolan from Pat's, as well as the experience of engine room operators Greg Bolger and Sean Murray.
"We have a lot of exciting young players. We sort of want to recruit similar to that and get the right experience around them," he said.
But crucially, Clancy knows adapting to facing higher calibre sides than they were grappling with last year will be vital for Cork this season.
"Last season, we had to deal with a lot of low blocks. A lot of teams sitting off, making the pitch compact. Sitting very, very deep and leaving very little space. It's going to be a very different season for us this year," the 40-year-old Meath man admitted.
"Every team is going to be probably ambitious about coming down to us - at the start of the season anyway - to win games. We've only got promoted. There's going to be that tag of the promoted team.
"We've kept a lot of the same team that won the (First Division) last year. We retained them. I think nine players left and we've got eight in. And a lot of the players we got in, other teams don't know much about.
"Listen, we've got a really good squad, a lot of good players. It's just getting confidence into them to produce on a Friday night. If we play to our best, we've got a chance of winning any game."
Nevertheless, he is under no illusion that the top tier has inner tiers of its own to surmount.
"I still do think it's probably a two-tier league. The Dublin clubs are very strong. Derry are spending a lot of money. And then you have probably the rest of us," said Clancy.
"The other five clubs, which people will be pointing fingers at and saying that's where the team is going to get relegated from. It's up to us to bridge the gap and get closer to the top as opposed to looking over our shoulder at the bottom. That's my job, to try and get the tactics right and the team selection right for each week."
And while they will be seen as underdogs on the pitch across 2025, the scale of the Cork fanbase has long become apparent to a manager whose playing career took him overseas to the English and Scottish leagues.
"I've said previously I was lucky enough to play for Hibs. It's probably the only place in Scotland where the local community support neither Old Firm team," he said.
"The Dundee clubs are big and Aberdeen is big but there's still a big contingent of locals there (in those cities) that support Celtic and Rangers. In Edinburgh, it's not. It's Hearts and Hibs. Every kid in the street wears Hearts and Hibs jerseys. When I was at Hibs, it felt like it was a huge club. I didn't have that at Drogheda, I didn't have it at Pat's either.
"Being at Cork City, you see that. There's women in the petrol stations, there's people in supermarkets, there's kids, they'll always stop you and ask about Cork City and the team and what's happening.
"It's the first time I've had that since I've been back in Ireland, that there's sort of feel around it. It's the second biggest city in the country. It's not like it's a small town with a big football club. It's a massive part of the community in the city down there and you get that great feeling."
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