Dublin: Following tactical curve keeps Declan Darcy on toes

“Ah, he’s still a grumpy old git, says f**k all.”

Not many people would get away with saying that about Jim Gavin – which is a good thing, because part of the fun is guessing what Gavin must be like behind that mask of emotional consistency.

Especially in the week of an All-Ireland football final.

Declan Darcy gets away with saying that because as his former Dublin team-mate and long-time selector, he knows Gavin well: there's also a mutual respect which helps explain why they're preparing Dublin for their third All-Ireland final in four years.

“Yeah, we’ve a great understanding, just have that thing, I can’t explain it,” says Darcy, and indeed it’s not easily explained. “A good connection, a good dynamic . . . and it works.”

Still, that "dynamic" had a slightly unlikely beginning: when Darcy joined the Dublin panel in 1998, having played the previous 10 years for Leitrim, the birthplace of his parents, Gavin was already well established, part of Dublin's 1995 All-Ireland winning team; that "connection" was later strengthened by the fact they were both dropped from the panel at the same time, at the end of 2002, by Tommy Lyons.

Lyons broke the fall by offering them a role with the Dublin under-21s, who he also managed: within a year Dublin had won their first All-Ireland in the grade.

When Gavin was later offered the under-21 job for himself in 2008, his sole condition was that Darcy came on board as well, and together they won another two All-Irelands in five seasons; no surprise then that Darcy was again his first choice as selector when Gavin was offered the top job in 2013.

Darcy says their relationship has evolved over the years as much as the teams they’ve managed; still, they act a bit like Siamese twins on the sideline, only with Darcy usually keeping an eye on the defence, while Gavin looks towards the forwards.

“All we wanted to do was play the best we could play, in a style of football that we wanted to play, which is open, attractive football,” Darcy says.

Mantra

“That was always our mantra. We didn’t want to go defensive. We wanted to let the players express themselves. Obviously now it has evolved . . . the team has completely changed in its dynamic, but in a good way. And the players take great credit for that, because they lead the charge.”

One of the standout components of this Dublin team is their ability to roll with the sort of punches Kerry hit them with at the end of the first half of the All-Ireland semi-final.

“I think that’s the preparation piece, to know that could happen and if it’s going to happen, what are you going to do – not to be legislating for conceding two goals and a point, fairly easily. But at the same time, this has happened before and we trust ourselves. It’s amazing, within the management group as well, we didn’t panic. It’s not that we weren’t worried. Of course, we were. But we were in a process and we just wanted to continue, trust ourselves and play the game out.

“We have the players, we have the ability, if they get their act in order. If Kerry had come out and scored a couple of points in the second-half, we could have been in big, big trouble. But they didn’t, and we took the initiative.

“So you just let it evolve, as you develop as a group, through the experiences that we’ve had in other matches. We talk about them as a group. We go through the rollercoaster rides that this team has been through, the ups and downs. And then as individual players as well, they’ve had their bad moments, they’ve had their good moments.

“So you put all of them together, not force it. You would be hoping when the test does come that they’ll trust themselves. And they were asked seriously hard questions [by Kerry]. They could have easily just said ‘today’s not the day, we have our All-Ireland from last year. But they didn’t.”

The Gavin-Darcy dynamic on the sideline may appear equally emotionally consistent, although is it always that way – especially if Darcy sees a few too many defenders turning into attackers?

Tactical

“There are times you might need eight backs and there are times you might need eight forwards. The game has gone very tactical. You see now players playing the middle of the field that might not have played midfield before. It’s the tactical piece of Gaelic football that has evolved, and it’s fascinating, I love watching it.

"I think Mickey Harte was the one that kind of challenged everybody from the tactical point of view, then Jim McGuinness, and I really like it. I enjoy watching the tactical piece of the game as opposed to the actual contact of the game.

“Not everyone likes that. Players put an awful lot of work into that too, the tactics. And that’s reflected on how they perform.”