Sometimes, even after examining the relevant evidence, two accepted reports cannot reasonably be applied together in the same case. Before simply preferring or rejecting one, the next inquiry concerns chronology: can it be established which ruling came later?
Where reliable evidence determines the later ruling and the genuine conditions of abrogation are met, the later ruling is nasikh and the earlier mansukh. Mere guesses about chronology, or the later life of a narrator, do not suffice.
The progression is establish the opposition → exhaust reconciliation → establish chronology. Reversing it risks treating compatible narrations as abrogated without cause.