As the field narrows, the scrutiny on potential opponents to Dublin's five in a row bid intensifies.
Tyrone produced their best performance of the summer to date to beat Kildare, and Lilywhites boss Cian O'Neill was impressed by what he saw, - even though he shouldn't have been so close to the action after the 28th minute.
At that point referee Robert Harvey sent O'Neill to the stand, but O'Neill talked his way into standing just to the right of the home dug-out in Newbridge.
He felt it had no impact on his team, with Kevin Feely scoring a goal soon after and Kildare at one stage getting the deficit back to two points, though he always felt they were chasing at St Conleth's Park.
O'Neill said: "Even though we were beaten by that certain margin (10 points), it's important to state the lads never stopped playing, they kept going at it."
That might be enough to keep him in the Kildare hot-seat for another year, although the earlier relegation from Division 1 won't help his cause.
"Disappointing," he said, reflecting on the year, while lamenting the loss of almost an entire forward line to injury and other commitments.
"It's funny, we didn't feel we played that well in the league but we were one match away from being promoted.
"In the championship it was a funny one too, we were ultimately beaten by the two teams that contested last year's All-Ireland final, but that being said we struggled early on in overcoming Wicklow and Longford.
"We just didn't perform as we did in the latter part of last year and that's really the big disappointment."
With his own team gone, can Tyrone have a say in the All-Ireland shake-up?
"What I saw there when Tyrone opened up was a seriously powerful and athletic team who are very organised in defence and had a lot of really positive attacking play as well," said O'Neill.
"They'll be a match for any team left.”
Including Dublin? “Dublin are on a different level," he acknowledged. "We went in with our eyes wide open to that Leinster semi-final.
"Even with the injuries we had going into that – and Paddy (Brophy) hurt his back in the warm-up – we were still confident of giving them a rattle.
"Then you're standing there on the line and thinking these guys are on a different level.
"I still think they're a level above but Tyrone will be one of those teams who'll be giving it (everything)".
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