Question for Dr Crokes is: How do you keep climbing the summit?

On these pages this day last week, we read of fallen empires, Caltra and Crossmolina, both of whom achieved All-Ireland Club football glory early in the last decade, suffering relegation to the intermediate ranks in Galway and Mayo respectively.

We learned also of Buffers Alley losing their seat at the top table of Wexford hurling.

A recurring theme among the three, though stronger in the cases of Caltra and Crossmolina, was the collective eye being taken off the ball at underage level when the seniors were motoring well and consequently, a failure to bring through young players once the men who carried the club to new heights hung up their boots.

It’s a story familiar to many once great clubs and one which Dr Crokes are working steadfastly to ensure never is told in Lewis Road.

At Austin Stack Park tomorrow, the Dr Crokes duo of Colm Cooper and Eoin Brosnan, should they see game-time, will be appearing in their 11th Kerry SFC decider. Their first was all of 17 years ago. One rung below them is Mike Moloney, Shane Doolan and Kieran O’Leary, all of whom played in their first county final in 2005. A young Brian Looney was a sub that day, establishing himself on the team a year later.

Far from signposting them for retirement, Crokes’ selector Niall ‘Botty’ O’Callaghan makes the rather obvious observation that these men can’t stay pulling on the black and amber forever. And when the day comes that they take a step back, Crokes have to be ready.

And their successors have to be ready.

The Dr Crokes squad listing tomorrow is a signpost to the club’s future proofing. Down at the bottom of their subs list, you’ll find Lorcan MacMonagle. A member of the St Brendan’s, Killarney team which won a second consecutive Hogan Cup in 2017, this is his first year on the Crokes senior panel.

The young defender has not featured in the 2018 championship game-time and is unlikely to do so tomorrow.

It was the same for Billy Courtney, David Shaw, Mark O’Shea and David Naughton last year. There to learn, rather than contribute.

Even the rejigging of Pat O’Shea’s backroom team ahead of this campaign offered further evidence of a club who have one eye on the present, the other firmly fixed on the future. Edmund O’Sullivan, having worked with the minors for the last number of years, was added to the senior backroom team. As his fellow selector O’Callaghan points out, “Pat doesn’t just pick names out of a hat and say, come in here and be involved.”

Every decision taken is done so with a path in mind.

“At the start of the year, we knew we had a lot of young fellas coming through. The challenge for the management has been to integrate these young fellas into the group so as to show them what is needed to get to a county final, what is needed to win county finals, to see the commitment given by the experienced players, to be around the dressing room with the likes of Colm Cooper, Eoin Brosnan, and Johnny Buckley, and to experience what it means to wear the Crokes jersey,” O’Callaghan explains.

“We believe it is not a case that you just walk up and rock into the Crokes set-up, you have to learn your role.”

It is an approach that didn’t win universal approval down around Lewis Road throughout 2016 as Tony Brosnan, a Kerry senior at the time, and All-Ireland minor winners Jordan Kiely and Micheál Burns were used as impact subs, called off the bench with 20 minutes to go in each game.

“Everybody was questioning us, asking us what we were doing in relation to these lads. They learned their roles within the club. Now, Micheál Burns is a leader within that group, a really good guy in the dressing room.

“Jordan has been injured so he was used as a sub in the semi-final, but still scored two goals when introduced. They’ve learned what it means to play for the Crokes.”

Also introduced during the nine-point win over Kerins O’Rahilly’s was Billy Courtney, while David Shaw started his fourth championship game in a row. Observers in 2017, their apprenticeship has moved up a gear in recent weeks.

“This is the eighth county final in 10 years for this group. Hopefully, we can create a seamless transition between young and old so to enable this club to carry on.

“What you don’t want is for Crokes to fall off a cliff, which happens to a lot of clubs. That is the challenge we have going forward.

“I think we are integrating the lads well. Billy and David were brought along to everything last year. This year, David got his chance and took it with both hands.”

Behind them, a steady queue is forming. The club’s second team, which won promotion to Division 2 of the county league back in August, was largely made up of players in their early twenties and late teens.

“Lorcan MacMonagle, we have a lot of time for him. Jack Griffin, too. David Naughton, he’s been playing unbelievable football at training. He is marking the likes of Kieran O’Leary and Colm Cooper. That’s only going to improve you. These fellas, like the ones who have gone before them, just need time to acclimatise.”