THE MAKING OF A MASTER
Special Jim Gavin tribute as Dublin boss steps down
AS if the news itself was not enough to shake Dublin to its foundations, it was the timing which took it right off the Richter scale The truth is that Jim Gavin’s departure was as confidently predicted as his team’s five-in-arow success in the build-up to this year’s All-Ireland final, but it was the timing of a perfectly executed body swerve yesterday which left the football world on the floor, staring at the sky in bewilderment.
After all, if he had taken his leave in the weeks after his team’s replayed final win over Kerry, which saw him at the final whistle dispense with that inscrutable poker face and join in a lap of honour which felt like an earnest farewell, any shock would have been feigned.
It would have felt like drawing a neat blue line under the most successful reign in the history of the game, but this felt more like a scrawl across the whiteboard of best practice.
It is not often we have hit deep winter before and witnessed a leaderless football team.
It happens, but only in counties where chaos is a constant, like Roscommon, or Offaly, or Mayo, or even Cork in the bad old days.
But this is Dublin; the county of order, the kings of process.
‘The committee will commence the process of considering suitable candidates to replace Jim and his management team shortly,’ declared county chairman Sean Shanley yesterday, just seven days before the ball will be throw up to start the O’Byrne Cup.
And, yet, it is hard to picture Dublin’s full-time secretary John Costello and a spooked group of county board officials huddled over a telephone directory with yellow highlighters to the soundtrack of a ticking clock.
There is good reason for that too. It is hard not to believe that Costello knew this was coming long before the rest of the world knew.
And even if this literally was a bolt from the blue, it is even more likely Costello – and let’s be clear his voice will carry the most weight – has known for some time who Gavin’s successor will be.
It is a secret that the whole world is in on; not least the market which all but presented Dessie Farrell with the Bainisteoir’s bib yesterday, installing him as the almost unbackable 4/7 favourite.
That does not make him a sure thing, but it makes him by a distance the most likely next thing.
His appeal is obvious in that he has, in many ways, traced the footsteps of his former team-mate Gavin, who, lest we forget, was also the winner of a one-horse race when he succeeded Pat Gilroy in the winter of 2012.
Gavin’s record of almost a decade of service at development level was validated with success at junior level and as a three-time All-Ireland under-21 winning manager.
Farrell, even when he was heading up the Gaelic Players Association between 2003 and 2016, remained, as in the title of his autobiography, Tangled up in Blue.
He took charge of the county’s development squad in 2005 – in some ways the equivalent of Gavin’s stint with the county juniors – before progressing to take on the minor and, subsequently, the under-21 team.
In 2012, 12 months after seeing his team go down to a shock final defeat to Tipperary, he managed the county to its first All-Ireland minor title in 28 years when they emphatically defeated Meath in the final.
That paved the way for his stepup to the under-21s, leading Dublin to All-Ireland titles in 2014 and 17, after which he stepped down. That provides him with an obvious strength in succeeding Gavin, having already helped put All-Ireland medals in the pockets of players such as Davy Byrne, Niall Scully, Cormac Costello, John Small, Jack McCaffrey, Brian Fenton, Paul Mannion, Eoin Murchan, Brian Howard and Con O’Callaghan.
It gifts him automatic respect within that group, while his highpowered off-the-field career – again like Gavin – suggests a cool strategic thinker and high achiever who is comfortable under pressure.
His parting gift to the GPA, who under his watch achieved official recognition, was to strike a deal which entitled the players’ body a ground-breaking share of the GAA’s commercial pie.
That ability to show composure when needed most and deliver under pressure had hardly gone unnoticed in Parnell Park.
The likelihood is that the only person who can stop Farrell getting this job is himself, as in he may not want it.
His decision to step down as CEO of the GPA removed the one obstacle that would have prevented him from taking it, although that was hardly his primary reason for doing so.
And he indicated in the immediate aftermath of that decision he had no ambition to succeed Gavin.
‘The commitment that’s required is abnormal in many ways,’ he claimed in an interview in 2016, weeks after stepping down from the GPA.
‘I don’t think that would be for me ultimately, if anyone did come knocking.
‘At senior level it’s very black and white. It’s all about winning and losing. When you move into the bigger stuff, it’s cut-throat,’ he declared.
Room there for some self-doubt, but in the interim he has dipped his toes in senior management taking on his club Na Fianna, who were unfortunate in losing out to eventual winners Ballyboden in this year’s county semi-final.
And he experienced management at inter-county senior level this year when he accepted an invite from Dublin hurling manager Mattie Kenny to join his backroom team, with the latter citing Farrell’s ‘winning culture’ as an important asset.
Of course, Costello will have other options and, given the tight deadline, the onr of reaching into Gavin’s management team and taking comfort in continuity may be tempting.
That may well a consideration – and if it is, Paul Clarke may well be the choice – but the best are not in the habit of settling for what is safest or what is easiest.
Farrell remains the stand-out candidate, and while timing – after all, who wants to follow in a path blazed by a history-maker? – may not be his friend, sometimes it is best ignored.
‘THE REQUIRED COMMITMENT NOW IS QUITE ABNORMAL IN WAYS’