Bernard Brogan is aiming for an early August return from the knee injury which he suffered in mid-February.
That timeline would have the five-time All-Ireland winner back for the final round of the Super Eight with the All-Ireland semi-finals to follow a week later.
"Three-and-a-half months since the operation, so feeling good. I'm back kind of moving, back skipping, back cycling, back doing a bit of jogging," said Brogan at the launch of Super Valu's Behind The Ball campaign.
Brogan suffered the injury during training on a Thursday evening before a league game against Donegal. The thought occurs to him that he may have been pushing himself a little bit too hard at the time, trying to edge himself further into Jim Gavin's plans.
In the final minutes of training, Brogan lost a high diagonal ball in the floodlights as he attempted to catch it over his head. He adjusted his body to make the catch and landed awkwardly. There was no one near him, it was an innocuous incident. "You'd love it to be a big hit in the middle of Croke Park in a big melee," joked the 34-year-old.
For the second time in his career - 14 years after the first - Brogan had ruptured his cruciate ligament. The chance that he might miss the entire 2018 championship wasn't really contemplated.
He was in such good shape at the time that he didn't have to wait long to under the knife.
"I'd been training hard and you have to have your leg muscles in good shape before you get the operation because they waste, you've four or five weeks without massive movement, just a few small drills.
"I'd done so much work earlier in the year because I was keen to get back playing with Dublin and back playing ball. I was actually in quite good nick so I was able to just get the operation straight away and just get going."
Ten days after collapsing in a heap, he underwent the procedure at Santry Sports Clinic. He had briefly hummed and hawed about getting the operation but after looking at the numbers he saw few have recovered without it.
Leinster and Ireland rugby player Josh van der Flier, who had injured his knee a week before Brogan during a Six Nations game against France, was getting his operation on the same day. The two have kept in touch about their progress.
I've been tick-tacking with him the odd time to see, he's a professional, he's people looking after him every day and he's a big man and a young man. But yeah he's not a million miles away from where I'm at as well so it's good to have that base.
When Brogan injured his knee aged 20, it took him six months before he was back on the pitch and another month after that to hit full tilt. That experience has been drawn upon as he looks to cut weeks off his recovery.
Five-and-a-half months is the aim. Medical innovations in the process will help but nothing beats hard work. In many ways, he's a model patient.
The medical resources of Dublin GAA - a convenience he knows not every player has - have also helped. "It's been done before. Fergus McFadden did it in four and a half months, a ream of people did it in five-and-a-half. It's not as if it hasn't been done before. I'm taking a lot of energy from that type of stuff."
Teammate Jack McCaffrey injured his knee in the early minutes of last year's All-Ireland final. The Clontarf player has already made his return to club action. "He's back flying now," said Brogan. "I have his scores and his timelines, that I've kind of chopped a good chunk of time off, I'm kind of where he was six weeks ago, eight weeks ago."
Breaking his recovery down into attainable goals has been valuable practice for Brogan. It's important to not think too far down the line - frustration could set in.
If Brogan does make a return to blue this summer, surgeons, doctors and physios will have played a part but ultimately, it's a driven attitude which will get him there.
"If you start just thinking about August and keep ticking away, it's very hard to motivate yourself. So I've broken it into weekly goals and what do I want to get out of it.
"I'm keeping a diary of each week and saying what my goal is and what do I want to get through that week. Every time it doesn't always work out but three weeks ago it was to get back cycling, I got back and I was able to do a spinning class. Then it was get back, get through the gears and the weights and the leg press. I've gone through that.
"I did a little bit of jogging last week, next week it's about doing a bit of running or boxing of whatever the goals are, breaking it down into weekly sizeable goals means that you feel like you're moving in the right way, you're stepping through it, whether it's one big long goal to try and get back onto the pitch in August, it's very hard to see the progression.
"I've another few weeks of gym work before I can do straight line running on a pitch but over the next three or four weeks, I'm hoping to get out beside the lads when they're training and start doing some straight line stuff, start getting back on the fitness and that type of thing.
"I kind of feel I'm just ahead of where I want to be. Time is my enemy with the summer but I'm definitely going in the right direction."
Now in its ninth year as sponsor of the GAA All Ireland Senior Football Championships, SuperValu is once again getting #BehindTheBall this summer. Ireland’s number one retailer is set to embark on an ambitious nationwide campaign to combat the lack of exercise amongst Ireland’s families through several initiatives including SuperValu’s Take Ten – a campaign that encourages families to take ten-minute bursts of daily exercise and get behind the ball. SuperValu will also continue its campaign to get children playing football by placing a GAA football into the hands of 55,000 children around the country bringing the total number of footballs donated to children by SuperValu to 110,000 by the end of 2018.
