Adapting to Gaelic football’s latest evolutionary steps is nothing new for Kerry.

They have been adapting to the game’s evolution since Down’s emergence in the early 1960s and, as 18 titles in the years since would suggest, done it with no little success.

Matching a Dublin side chasing a five-in-a-row will be their toughest test yet and Liston believes that the main priority for Fitzmaurice’s successor must be in establishing an effective bulwark at the back.

“The biggest thing that worries me about Kerry is our defence,” said Liston. “We never had to think too much about defence because we had fabulous individual defenders.

"Look at that team with Tom Sullivan, Mike McCarthy, Marc Ó Sé, Tomás Ó Sé, Seamus Moynihan, Aidan O’Mahony... You could have put them anywhere. You don’t need a system when you had them. But do we have those now? We don’t.

“Should we have a better defensive system? We should. Have we the knowledge in the county to be able to do that? I don’t think so.

We have to go and learn that from teams that have been good defensively. Go up to Donegal and pick the brains of Jim McGuinness. Or go up to Tyrone... That knowledge has to be brought into Kerry.

In that regard, Liston sees the choice of selectors as being of equal importance to the manager itself.

Whether Maurice Fitzgerald or Peter Keane, or AN Other, the onus on the next man up will be to fashion a management team and system capable of handling the workload.

“It’s a huge job, it’s like running Kerry Group,” Liston said of the senior post.

The recent findings from the ERSI — that inter-county managers are commiting over 50 hours a week to the task — prove just how much basic work there is to be done before anyone can even begin to contemplate the ultimate goal that is toppling Dublin.

The retirements of Kieran Donaghy and Donnchadh Walsh will only make it that much harder for Kerry to reclaim the All-Ireland although there is the alluring thought that the former’s loss could be tempered to an extent by a possible return to the scene of Tommy Walsh.

Still just 30, the Kerins O’Rahilly man failed to bed back down into the county scene on his return from the AFL in 2014 but the 2009 All-Star played a critical role in their recent Kerry SFC win over Dr Crokes.

Liston knows him well and is sure that he could do a job for Kerry again.

“If you believe that there’s still a role for a high ball into the square target-man... Is it your Plan A, B or C? No-one can do that better than Tommy Walsh,” said Liston.

He still has that peripheral vision, he can give that split-second pass to open up teams. But the manager has to believe... that there are certain days you’re going to have to use that. If you believe that, there’s no-one better than Tommy Walsh to do that.

"When you have a massive ball-winner with vision and able to give that pass... I would always love to have it in my armoury.”

Dublin have all but dispensed with such arbitrary tactics. Liston believes Jim Gavin has stolen a march on Kerry and others in their application of sports science while Tyrone’s wayward shooting in this year’s All-Ireland final was puzzling to him to say the least.

The vista is not an encouraging one for those hoping for a closer-run championship next season.

Even the extra weight of that five-in-a-row shot seems to be little in the way of an impediment to a county so many strides ahead of the rest.

“If you had three or four counties right at their heels, it would really affect them,” said Liston, a member of the Kerry side denied the quintet by Offaly in 1982.

But they have been so well-managed, are so skilful, a superb team which has a fantastic system.

“It’s only a while ago that you had three All-Stars not playing and they had three other fellas in, and sure they played like All-Stars. Fair play to them.”