"Reprogramming" may well become Joe Brolly's word of choice for the inter-county season ahead.
Speaking on the Independent's 'Throw-In' podcast ahead of the opening weekend of the National League, Brolly would appear tentatively positive that a change is going to come.
Suggesting that he can identify a few situations where the "reprogramming process" has already taken hold, allusions toward Dublin's dominance and the playing style in which it has been executed, shows the light.
The blanket-defense has, seemingly, found its logical end. With teams reverting back to "playing Gaelic football" as they once did, a short span of "reprogramming" will make the sport more of an enjoyable spectacle once again.
However, one swallow does not a summer make, and Brolly is by no means finished with lambasting purveyors of the dark arts.
Looking ahead to the beginning of the league, Brolly has taken exception with one side that is yet to see the light. Revisiting one of his analytical 'hits', Declan Bonner's Donegal side have the potential to do more damage than the 'black death' of 2014:
I called Cavan the black death three or four years ago when they won their third U-21 Ulster title in a row.
It was one of the most distressing sights in Irish life to watch the Cavan U-21s ... but they had nothing on Declan Bonner's underage Donegal teams.
I mean, the Donegal U-21s last year, it was the opposite of what sport ought to be, particularly given the calibre of player at his disposal.
Equating Bonner's underage sides to a professional set up in terms of the work they were doing, Brolly believes that they, more than most, are ripe for a "reprogramming" period.
While he concedes it may take a year or two to bring such a change about, the Derryman suggested that Bonner has "a duty to the game", and ought not satisfy himself with such a turgid playing-style.
In Donegal's county-champions Kilcar, Brolly does identify one side that did manage to overcome the "phalanx of suffocating" blanket defenses that is club football in that county.
However, with Bonner and this new incarnation of the "black death", Brolly feels it may require more than this to turn his head; "I'll believe it when I see it with Declan."
