All across the countryside, ex-players are being seized by an apocalyptic vision of the inter-county football championship turning into the modern day SPL.
An SPL as it has been for the last few years, minus one member of the Old Firm, a one-sided procession which engages a dwindling band of spectators year on year.
As we relayed yesterday, the most cherished symbol of culchie defiance, Mick Lyons, quietly disclosed that he'd struggle to see a team comprised of the 31 other counties beating the Dubs. He noted that the rest of the country haven't the resources to keep pace.
Today, Trevor Giles, a star member of Sean Boylan's second batch of All-Ireland winners in the late 90s, fears that Dublin's growth will kill the game as a spectacle. Here's a flavour of what he told Donnchadh Boyle in the Independent today.
I think they've just become dominant and I think they're going to stay that way for a few years which, for a neutral, isn't ideal in terms of, if Dublin are playing, are you going to watch it? Because it's going to be one-sided.
I think a lot of the games Dublin will be involved in you could say, 'They're going to win this game, it's not going to be a contest.
The 'split-Dublin' panic first kicked off in the early summer of 2014, after the Dubs demolished Cork in the second half of the League Final and then walked through the Leinster championship, effectively sounding the death knell of Leinster as a halfway competitive entity in that year's provincial final.
Meath's pride took a hammering in that year's Leinster Final and has not yet recovered. If recent utterings are any indicator, then the 'split Dublin' panic which took hold in 2014 will be as nothing compared to what's coming down the tracks.
