BEFORE GARY KEEGAN became Jim Gavin’s trusted advisor, Fergus Connolly was the performance expert he leaned on for advice.
Connolly, who left the Dublin set-up midway through the 2014 season to take up a role with NFL side San Francisco 49ers, was a key consultant of Gavin’s the previous year when he lifted his first All-Ireland title as manager.
Recalling his first meeting with Gavin in an interview a couple of years ago, Connolly was struck by the manager’s ambition.
“The goal is not success, it’s not to win one All-Ireland,” said Connolly. “The goal is to have sustainable success, to win All-Irelands.
“That is the goal. It should always be the goal to win more than one, not just one. To absolutely dominate. There’s no other way to win. It’s a mindset.”
Like a good army man, Gavin completed his task to his fullest. Dublin cast a long shadow over the Gaelic football landscape during his tenure, losing just one championship game from 2013 to 2019.
They scorched the earth in Leinster, completed the first five-in-a-row at adult level, reeled off six All-Ireland titles, went 36 league and championship games unbeaten and helped drag the sport out of the defensive quagmire it was mired in when Gavin first took over.
His willingness to seek out men like Keegan and Connolly for counsel showed Gavin’s humility, which is one of his strongest attributes.
Gavin, like Pat Gilroy before him, played in an era when Dublin often had more swagger than substance. Gilroy created a culture that Gavin brought to new heights and passed on that humility to his players.
The Dublin squad became player-led and self-policing. At half-time in big games, the players would have a conversation among themselves and raise a few pointers with management.
Between them, players and management would come up with a refined strategy to execute for the second-half. More often than not, they would blow teams away after the interval.
The players were encouraged to play the game as they saw it and trusted to make any mid-game tweaks required.
Gavin was always open to taking ideas from other sports. The influence of basketball on Dublin’s attack – encouraged by coaches Mark Ingle and Jason Sherlock – has been well-documented.
Soccer could be seen in how they pressed, used the sideline as an extra defender and defended zonally. Like the NFL, Gavin would refer to an area inside the scoring zone as the ‘red zone’ – where scoring chances were expected to be converted. Moreover, they used set moves to create space for Stephen Cluxton’s kick-outs.
Humility was one of the defining principles of Gavin’s philosophy. It’s what made all their winning sustainable.
By all accounts, the Dublin players were not expecting his decision. Gavin informed the players in person at a meeting yesterday morning.
“There was no hint that he was going to go at this point,” remarked Ciaran Whelan yesterday.
The Round Towers clubman even gave an interview on Friday at an Irish Aviation Authority event where he looked ahead to the 2020 season: “We’re looking forward to it and we’ve got eight weeks to go to the National Football League.”
The timing of his departure, which arrives at a time where most inter-county squads have returned to training, indicates it was a decision Gavin didn’t arrive at easily and deliberated over for weeks.
After their All-Ireland victory in 2013, he remarked that Dublin were already behind their rivals in preparations for the following year because their season had only finished.
For his predecessor, having just six weeks to get his feet under the table before the first match of his reign is far from ideal – albeit Dublin tend to put out a developmental side in the O’Byrne Cup.
The presence of Gavin’s father Jimmy at the All-Ireland final replay post-game press conference hinted that the gig may be up. Yet at the beginning of last month, Dublin chairman Sean Shanley seemed to put an end to any talk over Gavin stepping down.
“He hasn’t indicated that he’s going,” he said. “The way he’s inquiring and talking about fixtures for the league and that, I’d say he is definitely staying on.”
If Gavin knew for sure he was going to leave after the five-in-a-row was completed, then he wouldn’t have waited until now to make that intention public.
As ever, he did things in his own understated way. The official confirmation from the county board on the Dublin GAA website contained no quotes from Gavin, no lengthy speech listing out his achievements or giving thanks to his backroom team and players.
Those things were done behind closed doors, as was always the case with this Dublin team.
The challenge now for Shanley and CEO John Costello is to find a man capable of bringing things on from the most successful manager in the history of the sport.
Comparisons with Gavin will be inevitable for the new man, and also unfair. But unlike when Alex Ferguson left Manchester United, Dublin are prepared for this.
Ferguson dragged one last Premier League title out of an ageing and overperforming United side in 2013. The Dublin squad might have plenty of players the wrong side of 30 but the nucleus of the starting team are still in their mid-20s and without much injury history.
It’s possible some of the older guard will follow Gavin out the exit door to give his successor a fresh start, or they might see the value in providing continuity for the incoming era.
It’s a driven, highly-motivated squad but after completing the historic five-in-a-row, what was left to chase? Now the group will view Gavin’s departure as a fresh challenge to overcome.
Dessie Farrell and Gilroy are thought to be the early frontrunners and both men would be closely aligned to Gavin’s way of thinking. Having invested so much in a time-consuming role over the past seven years, all or some of his coaching team of Sherlock, Paul Clarke and Declan Darcy may also decide to move on.
Replacing that outstanding group is the first of many hurdles the next manager must navigate. And yet, the structures are in place for this team to continue to dominate for years to come.
Dublin’s U20s reached the All-Ireland final this year and there’s plenty of young talent emerging that will be vying for places on next season’s squad.
Kerry are coming with a talented, youthful side, but Dublin remain the best team in the land.
Even Gavin’s departure won’t change that.
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