The hierarchies in football and hurling differ. Throughout the history of the small ball game, Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny have pushed ahead like the leaders of a bike race, taking it in turns to hit the front before being reeled back and the process beginning afresh.

Football though has been a story of Kerry pulling farther and farther ahead of Dublin with no other county breaking double figures. Dublin's status as the closest challenger owes much to the circumstances of the early GAA and the difficulty involved for those working in the city who wished to continue playing with home clubs and counties.

A simple statistic here: the current roll of honour places Kerry at the top on 37 with Dublin next on 24. Strip it back then to the Sam Maguire, first presented in 1928: the iconic trophy has gone to Kerry 30 times but to Dublin only 10, which clearly outlines the difference between the counties in the modern era even if no one else has won more than Dublin.

For all that a Dublin-Kerry All-Ireland final still represents something. In these pages yesterday, Jim McGuinness treated caustically the concept of the pairing as a "dream final" but almost immediately answered the point he had raised by saying that "the two best teams in Ireland have made it through to September".

That’s the appeal. The counties have been the “best two” for more than 100 years and when they meet, that is the tradition. It’s not that it’s worth any more than another All-Ireland. Croke Park officials are as likely to say that it’s more of a dream semi-final or quarter-final, as finals sell out anyway.

Dominant county

You’d have to qualify the “best two” argument by pointing out that there’s been a fair gap between them for much of the past 100 years. Dublin chase a third successive win over Kerry for the first time, whereas their opponents have been able to wrap their most recent four defeats – in 1976, 1977, 2011 and 2013 – in 14 victories, delivered in sequences of six from 1941 to 1975 and eight from 1978 to 2009.

Dublin’s problem in this fixture is that they have provided opposition that has been both traditional and beatable. The latter is enough of a hindrance without it becoming part of the former.

This is all in the context of Kerry being the game’s dominant county. They win more than anyone else so the chances are – and for Dublin have proved to be – that any individual county who plays them often enough will end up with a daunting debit balance.

Down have been the exceptions, exemplars of good timing in this regard, and have won five championship meetings out of five. It's fair to say they were widely considered the better team on four of those occasions but who knows in 2010 whether the increasingly spectral phenomenon of the Ulster county's record in the fixture was beginning to have an impact on a Kerry team strongly favoured to win?

Not even Down people are unaware of what the stats might be were the counties to have met 10 rather than five times.

Multiply it out for Dublin, Kerry’s opponents for the 28th time in championship next Sunday, and the more the counties play the more the historical norm asserts itself. This obviously includes matches in which Dublin had little chance of winning and so through no fault of their own – beyond the unequal distribution of talents – the county lost matches and the stats piled up.

They all count though and when Dublin had teams that should win – like two years ago – it wasn’t always that simple even if they won.

Innovative play

I spoke this week with Denis O’Mahony, captain of the Dublin team in the 1955 All-Ireland. Based on the St Vincent’s GAA Club and bound by those ties as well as having played minor together, they were pioneers of the modern GAA in Dublin, bringing a native, city-born culture to the games.

Add to that the excitement of innovative tactical play – Kevin Heffernan as a roving full forward – and they were definitively new-fangled favourites against Kerry's high priests of catch and kick.

Blessed with the greatest commendation of the age, “scientific”, they were a disaster on the day. O’Mahony still becomes mournful when trying to address why his team, who he still fervently believes were better footballers, lost so comprehensively on the day.

Twenty years later Heffernan was back in a final against Kerry with the team he had conjured from nowhere to win the 1974 All-Ireland. Hot favourites, they were again turned over by Kerry.

What were the odds? Dublin come with their best team in more than 50 years and Kerry produce the greatest team ever.

Unusual position

They still managed to win a couple more and delay Kerry’s ascent into history by a year or two. No wonder Heffernan stepped down (temporarily, as it turned out) in 1976 after finally beating his nemesis in an All-Ireland final – and for all we know, weeping that there were no more worlds to conquer.

Ghosts don’t have to be intrinsically menacing for the sight of one on a dark night to be disturbing. Dublin are in the historically unusual position of being favourites to beat Kerry in an All-Ireland final. Although they have lost finals they should have won, winning is too much of a practice for Kerry to place much store in ghosts.

Have Dublin now reached a sufficiently elevated plane of consciousness that they can say the same?

smoran@irishtimes.com