What will be telling is just departed Dublin manager Jim Gavin next step. Does he withdraw from public life, J D Salinger-style, never to practice his hard-to-define sorcery again? Or, does he do the circuit? asks Colin Sheridan.

The Tuesday night after Donegal scraped through the 2014 All-Ireland quarter-final, Jim McGuinness crammed his players into a makeshift portable building at Donegal’s yet-to-be-built Centre of Excellence in Convoy.

Not even Jim Gavin could keep his guard up for seven whole years and the ex-Dublin boss did drop enough nuggets of intrigue over the years to remember him by.

Having wrestled momentum back from Dublin when managing to draw level on the stroke of half-time (this was the first time since the 15th second the Kingdom had stood on level terms with their opponents), Kerry found themselves on the backfoot once again when Eoin Murchan supplied the sole goal of this All-Ireland final nine seconds after the restart.

Dublin have won their fifth All-Ireland title in a row in a stunning battle with Kerry at Croke Park.

Genius, we have long known, is subjective and wears many faces. Whether it’s Messi riding tackles, Steve Smith knocking another century in the Old Trafford mud, or Sinead O’Connor reminding us all what it is to be alive, when we observe it, we can lose ourselves temporarily, unprepared for what we have just witnessed.

John Fogarty asks what previous All-Ireland final replays can tell us about Saturday’s game?

When trying to predict which player or players could have a really serious impact on the All-Ireland SFC final replay, one man keeps on springing to mind having watched the drawn encounter back in full, writes Peter McNamara.

Kerry great Aidan O’Mahony reckons it’s a myth that Dublin’s bench options have diminished as they close in on the five in a row.

To curve or to swerve — that is the question.

Michael Moynihan asks a few different questions for the week ahead.

Bernard Brogan is one of the founders of Peptalk, a corporate well-being company that counts big businesses like Coca-Cola, Zurich and Northern Trust as clients.

Sport Scientist Ciarán Deely looks at the five areas Jim Gavin and Peter Keane will be focusing on in the run up to next week’s replay.

When Diarmuid Connolly sat back into the pocket, setting himself up for power fade with the outside of his right boot, in a similar way to Ronan O’Gara and the Grand Slam drop goal over a decade ago, I thought perhaps the story was written in the stars for the prodigal son to return home with the fattened calf.

We don’t exactly know what’s going to happen on September 14 but we figure there is a better chance of predicting what won’t

The experienced Gavinologists in the press corps expected a little fraying of the Dublin manager’s equanimity after a game like yesterday’s All-Ireland final.

Paradise lost or great expectations? This was no Penguin Classic but it will have the look of one for Kerry.

One way or another it’s going to be a historic day. Either the Five in a Row or 1982 Revisited. The RTÉ panel are so giddy they appear to be groping one another. You read that correctly.

All-Ireland winner Bryan Sheehan on learning the art of free-taking from Maurice Fitzgerald and why Kerry football is in a good place, despite the exodus of its All-Ireland winning stars.

The Oxford Dictionary defines juggernaut as ‘a huge, powerful, and overwhelming force’ and by way of explanation uses ‘the juggernaut thundered through the countryside’ as a descriptor.

This rising tide of support for Kerry? Feels wrong.

"Yerra, we live in hope in Kerry"

Dublin great Barry Cahill reckons the odds of both Jim Gavin and Stephen Cluxton remaining in their positions beyond Sunday’s All-Ireland final are only ‘50-50’.

“I learned a long time ago when Kerry talk about other counties, I take it with a pinch of salt.”

Dublin great Charlie Redmond has insisted there’ll be no ‘resentment’ if Diarmuid Connolly beats a lionheart performer like Bernard Brogan to an All-Ireland final bench spot.

These are no ordinary times in Gaelic football and this is no run-of-the-mill five-in-a-row bid.

In the 2017 Division 1 final, Kerry brought Dublin’s 36-game unbeaten record across League and Championship to an end. Next Sunday, they aim to prevent Jim Gavin’s men from extending their defeat-less Championship run to 36. Thirty-three Championship wins and two draws have brought Dublin to the brink of creating GAA history. Here are 15 facts and figures behind their remarkable five-in-a-row tilt:

You don’t have to be an anti-Dub to have left Croke Park on Saturday evening feeling utterly deflated at what you had just witnessed.

The ironies of Stephen O’Brien’s proposed, cumulative one-match ban are worth mentioning.

It was the morning after that always gave it away that Paul Flynn had been involved in a championship game against Mayo.

Just once have Dublin failed to score a goal against Mayo and their nine points were still enough to win in a dour

It’s to him that most eyes will turn tomorrow evening. Wherever Lee Keegan is, there will be toil and there will be trouble.

Michael Murphy, captain of the last team to beat Dublin in the Championship 35 games ago, has suggested what it’ll take for Mayo to repeat that feat this weekend — a 2-20 scoreline.

I once heard a story about a wily old country school principal who liked to maintain a tight grip of the reins of the schoolyard every lunchtime — absolutely nobody wanted to get brought to his attention.

The tepid showing of Jim Gavin’s second string in Sunday’s Super 8 win over Tyrone has ‘demystified Dublin’, says former Armagh star Tony McEntee.

There was a smile and a handshake for Diarmuid Connolly upon his departure from the field for a black card but Jim Gavin had returned to battle mode by the time he met the press.

And with that, the Super 8 became the final four with the remaining quartet arguably the best in the country.

Fake football was the order of the day in Omagh as the biggest indictment of a Championship format unfit for purpose was served up.

I can’t tell you how much of a buzz it would have been for David Gough to have taken charge of Saturday’s game in Castlebar.

Diarmuid Connolly’s first Championship start for Dublin in 26 months was marked with a win as Dublin confirmed their All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo this Saturday.

Tuesday morning, 12 days out from Dublin’s next game in the Championship, and two Ciarán Kilkennys turn up for a media engagement.

Paul ‘Pillar’ Caffrey, the man who handed Diarmuid Connolly his Championship debut, has admitted the forward’s mid-summer recall was “bizarre, a circus, unreal, a surprise”.

It is difficult to keep up with everything happening in the championship with so many big games coming so close together.