At this rate it looks almost certain to become a quiz question that will test the biggest GAA anoraks in years to come.

How many times did the Mayo footballers play in Dr Hyde Park, Roscommon, during the 2024 championship?

Of course, Sunday will be the third time this summer that the Mayo team bus will have wound its way along the narrow pathway at the graveyard end of ‘The Hyde’.

They have already been there twice to take on Roscommon and left on both occasions with what they came for. It has been nothing if not a happy hunting ground for them.

The fact that Mayo’s manager, Kevin McStay, lives (literally) across the road from Dr Hyde Park adds another dimension to Mayo’s new ‘home away from home’.

If he was so inclined he could enjoy his dinner and watch the start of The Sunday Game Live before strolling across to the stadium on Sunday.

But given that it’s another ‘D-Day’ for McStay and the team he has been building over the last 18 months, he will be leaving nothing to chance.

Complacency is not an option against Dublin.

The All-Ireland champions have a penchant for spotting weaknesses, especially when it comes to playing Mayo in championship football in recent years.

You only have to rewind back to the All-Ireland Finals of 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2020, not to mention the semi-finals of 2015 and 2019, to find examples of how Dublin found a way to get the better of Mayo.

Some of those games were closer than others, but the Dubs always got the job done.

Last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final was one of those days when the argument was settled long before the final whistle. Dublin delivered their version of ‘shock and awe’ and Mayo were powerless to prevent it.

Sunday will show how much they’ve learned from that experience.

Rekindling the spirit of 2006, 2012 and 2021 — seasons when Mayo turned the Dubs over in All-Ireland semi-finals — is likely to have been spoken about on message boards and on high stools where Mayo supporters gathered this week.

Those were matches where all seemed lost for the Green and Red at various stages, but they embraced the chaos and came roaring back to win against the head.

They were performances and victories that shortened winters and made memories for life.

But the world and the game has changed in the intervening years, even since the sensational extra-time win of three summers ago.

Mayo now tend to play a more measured brand of football with patience replacing power-plays and ‘The McStay Way’ replacing ‘Horanball’ as the best Mayo team since the All-Ireland winners of 1951 broke up and the guard was changed.

The Mayo squad has been in transition in recent years while also learning how to transition from defence to attack in a way that would get the most out of themselves.

A National League title last spring was the perfect start to the new era but two years without a Connacht title, allied to last summer’s disappointing defeat to Dublin, means that this current Mayo team would seem to be still searching for their identity.

Consistency has also been hard to find at times, but the way they have responded (so far) after losing to Galway in the provincial final will give them reasons to be optimistic ahead of this latest litmus test against Dublin.

How Mayo match up to the best team in the country, and the raging hot favourites to continue their unbeaten march towards another All-Ireland, will help to shape the rest of their summer.

A shock win would catapult the Westerners into the last eight and might cause many observers and critics to revise their opinions of the beaten Connacht finalists. Even a narrow defeat on the back of a good performance would be nothing to be ashamed about.

However, Mayo cannot afford the worst-case scenario just a week before an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final, even if that game would be played on home ground in Castlebar.

A heavy defeat would make it extremely difficult to get things back on track.

But such an outcome will be the last thing on most Mayo minds as they file into Dr Hyde Park again and tune into the TV (and podcast) coverage all around the world.

Games against Dublin always allow Mayo supporters to dream of bigger and better days, and the prospect of the teams bringing out the best in each other is enough to excite young and old alike.

Sunday is a chance for Mayo to stand up and be counted, to take on to ask questions of a Dublin team that are rarely left scrambling for answers.

All roads have led back to Roscommon so far for Mayo, but the road to Croke Park is only around the corner now.