Alan Brogan believes Dublin have come back to the pack in Leinster and the province is where it was prior to the Blues' big All-Ireland winning breakthrough in 2011.
Brogan sees Leinster now as it was around 2009-11, when the Dubs were establishing dominance of the province.
At that time, however, the Blues did not have the vice-like grip that they held until their six in a row All-Ireland winning run came to an end at the hands of Mayo last year.
In 2010, Meath beat Louth in a controversial provincial decider, and it wasn't until the following year that the structures were fully in place for the Dubs to go on and utterly dominate Leinster.
Dessie Farrell's side begin their Leinster SFC campaign in Wexford Park on Saturday evening and they are favourites to extend their provincial title winning streak to 12 in a row.
Brogan, who won 11 Leinster titles himself, acknowledges that the gap is closing between the best of the rest and the top dogs.
"It's certainly come back a bit," said the 40-year-old. "It's certainly not where it was four or five years ago.
"I think to be fair to Dessie and his management team, the personnel has changed, some of the guys they've lost are kind of irreplaceable on any team.
"In any sport, in any period of success, it's kind of cyclical like, if you look at Man United now and the struggles they're having, you can see loads of examples of that over the years in sport.
"I don't think there's any real panic. Dessie needed a bit of time to get some new players through and maybe he'd like to get them through maybe a bit quicker than what we have.
"We haven't really seen any young players bolt from the blue in the last couple of years. We probably saw Sean Bugler maybe come into a better bit of form in the National League, so I'd expect him to play a big part in the championship.
"Dessie is going to need one or two guys like that to really step up. Like, in terms of the Leinster championship, whether the gap has closed sufficiently that Meath or Kildare can beat Dublin in a big game in Croke Park, I'm not entirely sure.
"But it's definitely closer. It's back to where it was maybe in 2009, 2010, 2011, that sort of time when we were having very tight games with the likes of Meath and Kildare."
Dublin hope to be boosted by the return of Con O'Callaghan in Wexford - the sharpshooter hasn't featured for his county in 2022 to date
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"Maybe having Con back just adds that bit of ball winning ability that they can maybe have a bit more confidence to kick it in a bit more," assessed Brogan, who was speaking at the Sport Ireland Campus' 'Here We Go' campaign launch.
"That's certainly what I'd like to see about them.
"We've seen with this Dublin team, when they move the ball quick they're really, really dangerous.
"But, in the League, it looked like teams had kind of figured out this patient hand-passing style that we've kind of become accustomed to and seen them play over the last number of years.
"It's difficult to make wholesale changes in the league as well because games are coming thick and fast but they'll have had a number of weeks...it's obviously been very quiet, I'm sure they've played a number of challenge matches but I certainly haven't heard much coming out from the camp.
"But I'd expect that the game plan will have slightly evolved from where we saw them over the course of the National League."
Brogan points to the time the Dublin team he was on went to Longford and were pushed to the pin of their collar in the championship.
"You'd expect Dublin to win but they do need to be careful because they are coming into it on the back of a few weeks off after the League, you can't imagine confidence can be that high," he said, referring to the Dubs' relegation.
"I know we might say it's only the League and we put that to the back of our minds but guys play off confidence and they haven't had games.
"So they will need a couple of games in the Leinster championship to get that back. It's the one they'll need be careful of but obviously, I would expect a Dublin win.
"Having Con back obviously will be huge and look, you can't put it all on one guy either - I saw a quote this morning saying Con's back, it'll reinvigorate this team but it is difficult for him to come back.
"I'd say he hasn't played football for four or five months and even at that stage, he was probably struggling after the county campaign and he has a lot of football played over the last few years.
"So it'll test him to come into a game like that in Wexford Park, and maybe looking for a huge impact is asking for a lot of him.
"I think the guys need to stand up and be counted now."
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