Admittedly, the East Kerry championship kept the Killarney lads ticking over into December, but from a situation where the divisional final on December 22 was their 11th game in 12 weeks, they’ve now been idle for the past eight weeks.

Calls for the club championships to be completed within the calendar year continue to fall on deaf ears and so once more Dr Crokes head into an All-Ireland semi-final unsure of what foot they’ll put forward, simply because it has been so long since they were exposed to the cutthroat environment which will manifest itself inside in Semple Stadium from 3.30pm onwards.

“Because it is 12 weeks since your last proper championship game, you do worry,” admits Crokes selector Niall O’Callaghan.

“You are hoping on the day that you hit form, but you just don’t know. If we had played this semi-final soon after the Munster final, you’d know what you’d get. You’d know Tony Brosnan is on form, David Shaw is on form.

"Now, you are going into a game wondering who is in form because it’s been so long to that Munster campaign. Of course, it is the same for all four teams.”

Indeed, it is. But where Mullinalaghta and Gaoth Dobhair are first-time All-Ireland semi-finalists, Crokes and Corofin are regulars at this particular juncture.

That experience of having readied themselves for All-Ireland semi-finals in 2012, ‘13, ‘14, and ‘17, even if only one of those games went their way, has to count for something, reckons O’Callaghan.

“The experience we have, we would hope that’d shine through. And the experience we have from preparing for past semi-finals will help us. We think our preparation has been right. We trust in it and we trust our players.

It is hard because we have been in the situation where we have lost All-Ireland semi-finals. You are after breaking your chops for 11 or 12 weeks and then you are gone, you are licking your wounds and you are saying, was it all worth it and what did we do wrong.

"We’ve had loads of occasions where we’ve had our asses handed to us in the semi-final so we don’t take anything for granted.”

Fellow selector Vince Casey is “hopeful” of a performance to match what they produced when steamrolling through Munster in November.

Then again, as he says himself, he was hopeful of a semi-final performance when serving at the helm in February of 2013 and 2014, successive springs where Crokes fell at the penultimate hurdle.

“Effectively, it is like a pre-season game because it is your first game of the year and you’re coming in after a long break to your most recent game, but it just so happens that it is a game where there is a lot at stake.

“It is just so unpredictable because players haven’t played at that pitch since the end of November, that is nearly two and a half months ago.

"That’s a long time to be away from competitive championship action. And that’s what makes it so intriguing.

The semi-finals are always the hardest part to get through. At least if you get to the final, you have a game under your belt and you’ve learned a little bit more about yourself.”

Whatever about their slight worry as to what they’ll produce on Saturday, there are no such concerns surrounding focus or the potential for complacency to set in.

Whatever the external talk may be or however strong the consensus is that, it’ll be a Corofin-Crokes decider, the footballers of Lewis Road will not be listening.

“We’ve had complacency and that has contributed to us being beaten in the past,” O’Callaghan remarks.

Added Casey: “Our boys are experienced. They know that if they’re not fully tuned in, they’ll be out of the competition.

“I know one or two of the players spoke to one or two of the Kilmacud Crokes boys. They were fully prepared for the Leinster final and were just beaten by a better team, a team that wanted it more in the last 10 or 15 minutes. If we take Mullinalaghta for granted, we’re gone.”

Though they are not looking past Saturday, they’re not going to hide either their burning ambition to reach a fourth All-Ireland club final.

“It is the ultimate in club football,” Casey continues.

“I would prefer if it was in December, but if we get through Saturday, it’ll be fantastic to get back to Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day.”