It's been a whirlwind few years at club level for Kildare footballer Eoin Doyle.
Just a couple of years ago, with Naas two games away from a first county title since 1990, manager Paul Kelly left in acrimonious circumstances ahead of the semi-final.
Doyle, the Kildare captain from 2016 and a key figure in Naas’s bid to end the silverware drought, stepped into the breach. The player-manager delivered a Kildare title before the side came up short against Kilmacud Crokes in the provincial decider.
The managerial role ended after six games, now concentrating on his duties as a defender and team captain as the club goes from success to success.
Last month Naas became the first Kildare club to seal a three-in-a-row since Sarsfields in the 1950s, and on Saturday (live on RTÉ2) will renew rivalries with Crokes in another Leinster final, where they will enter as underdogs.
Victory for the Stillorgan-based club would see them join St Vincent's and Portlaoise at the the top of the Leinster roll of honour, with their opponents seeking a maiden title.
The desire is to go further in the competition, but Doyle has been around long enough to savour a county title.
"When we finished up with the Kildare championship, and we were long enough in the doldrums without winning that, our absolute focus was in that," Doyle told RTÉ Sport.
"You’ve an opportunity to put your best foot forward to progress along the provincial championships or you can just go through the motions and find yourself out at the first round."
Summerhill were dispatched with 10 points to spare, but the semi-final joust with St Loman’s required extra-time to find a winner, with Darragh Kirwan’s 1-07 propelling Naas to a third consecutive championship clash with Crokes and a repeat of the 2021 decider.
Three goals helped Crokes to a nine-point winning margin in last year’s semi-final, with seven points between the sides in the previous campaign.
Dublin star Paul Mannion was absent for both games, and Doyle is acutely aware that the reigning All-Ireland champions will be a tough nut to crack on Saturday at Croke Park.
"They’re a phenomenal side. Never mind good players, they’re All-Stars.
"The first year we played them in a Leinster final here, we would have felt we had a decent enough first half, but we petered off in the second.
"Last year, it just felt like we got hit with sucker punch goals at different times, that always kept us at arm’s length.
"So we never got a chance to test them and put them to the pin of their collar. The experience thing they are and as well coached as they are, they always just kept you at arm’s length."
Having edged out Raheny in a Dublin semi-final shootout and squeezing past St Mary’s last time out by two points, Doyle says it is no coincidence that Kilmacud are coming out the right side of tight, sometimes low-scoring encounters.
"It’s a mixture of their coaching and experience that they’re able to just always keep teams where they want them and always keep the right side of the scoreboard.
"If you let them clock up big scores, they wouldn’t be shy about doing it either."
With the Naas hurlers bowing out to Dublin opposition in Na Fianna last weekend, a provincial double is off the cards, with dual players Brian Byrne, James Burke and Dara Guerin now left to focus solely on football matters.
Doyle himself won’t be drawn on whether he will commit to Kildare for 2024 – "we’ll see what happens next year, the body is creaking a bit more than other years" – and now it’s all about the club and trying to extend their championship journey.
Provincial silverware with Naas is all that is motivating the defender.
"If you're finishing your career and you haven't won one, that's certainly something that would gnaw at me anyway," he said.
"But there's absolutely zero guarantees, you don't deserve anything just because you're here for a second time. You don't deserve anything in sport. You have to go out and take it and grasp it and make the most of it."
Watch the Leinster club football final, Kilmacud Crokes (Dublin) v Naas (Kildare), on Saturday from 2pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player and listen to updates on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
