As the shock of Jim Gavin's departure from the Dublin senior football setup subsides, Off The Ball spoke to former players
"His media interviews became the stuff of legend. They were just so scripted and lacking in passion - the thing that we love about the GAA.
"A line I thought about when I heard - and I think it applies for all the best teams' managers - was from the 'Usual Suspects': "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist.'
"A brilliantly-managed team almost looks like it's managing itself on the pitch - that it is down to the players. That he himself didn't seem to be doing anything of real note.
"But to get a team going to that level, he obviously set the tone massively. Even when he said that he was going to come in and win multiple All-Irelands; I'm sure that he said that in a very quiet, ego-less way.
"He set the tone [...]Jim Gavin was absolutely key."
Jim Gavin leaves
Former Dublin senior footballer Barry Cahill also gave an insight into what he felt was Jim Gavin's biggest strength during a period that saw Dublin create evermore excellent footballers.
"He very much gave off a persona of calmness and coolness - the lads were able to make the right decisions under pressure.
"Another big strength of Jim's was that, despite having such a competitive squad of players that are trying to compete for the twenty-six or the match [...] you would never hear any real discontent coming out of the group at all, which is extremely rare."
What was it like going toe-to-toe with Jim Gavin's Dublin? | Former @MayoGAA boss Stephen Rochford told us on #OTBAM | @DubGAAOfficial
Full chat 👉 https://t.co/45RrAKfJbq pic.twitter.com/XQrTZH5A1y— Off The Ball (@offtheball) December 2, 2019
"He had to make tough calls to not include [former All Stars] in the squad, which must have been extremely challenging for him.
"But the way he went about it, the players saw it in the manner in which it was meant."
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