Jim Gavin's talent for rendering swathes of the league and championship nondescript means he rarely gets any end-of-season postscripts.
Galway's Micheál Donoghue was today announced as the Phillips Manager of the Year for 2017, ahead of Gavin. Donoghue deserves the award, and this piece is not the leaking of righteous ink in fury at a perceived snub of the Dublin manager. To get exercised over entirely subjective and largely meaningless matters is largely the point of watching top-level sport, but we won't do it here.
What we are going to do, however, is point out the flaw in these awards, and argue that Gavin remains somewhat underrated.
All annual managerial awards are inherently flawed in the sense they are doled out on that year's achievements, ignoring the select few who build something greater than success: a dynasty. Turning latent promise into blatant achievement is one thing; making it routine is another thing entirely.
Alex Ferguson was LMA manager of the year a relatively paltry four times. Brian Cody and Jim Gavin are responsible for the greatest pair of teams to hurtle across Croke Park this century, yet both have one Phillips award each. (2003 and 2013 respectively).
Gavin has a lot going in his favour: he has a deeper wealth of resources - financial and human - than any other manager in the history of the game, but four All-Ireland titles in five years are not automatically allocated. His is a genuine coaching achievement, showcasing technical skills along with a flair for alchemy.
Like all of the truly dynastic managers, Gavin is pragmatic rather than dogmatic. (Jose Mourinho, for example, is wrongly dropped in the former camp: his defensive style is a dogma which is not always the best way to win. See recent failures to truly attack vulnerable Liverpool and Manchester City defences as an example).
Ferguson, by contrast, defined his career by being flexible on most issues if he thought he could win.
His commitment to attack was never quite as unwavering as is often portrayed (he once played seven defenders in a win against Arsenal), while he treated some of similar foibles differently, dependent on the form of the player in question: Eric Cantona and David Beckham were as prone to extravagant style and self-expression as each other, but whereas Beckham got a boot in the eye, Ferguson pretended not to notice when Cantona turned up for a formal reception in tracksuit and trainers.
The defining game in analysing Gavin's success is his solitary championship defeat. In 2014, a year after saying "we play the game the way we believe it should be played" after an All-Ireland win, Gavin was left bereft, saying that "I accept full responsibility for the philosophy and for the way Dublin play their football, for the attacking style we play and sometimes for the vulnerability that it brings" . Dubin had been choked by Jim McGuinness' blanket defence and sliced asunder by their counter-attack.
He reinvented his style of play, with the winter spent hatching a new style of play, something which Alan Brogan said "obsessed" him. The result: a couple of his forwards retreated, and the remaining forwards were sent wide to get some chalk on their boots. This was to create space for blistering defenders to punch through packed defences, and when they couldn't go direct, Ciaran Kilkenny became prominent in a more cerebral approach: passing and probing until a gap or scoring opportunity appeared.
Dublin have been untouchable since.
The belief that Gavin's change in style has instilled in his players is remarkable, borne out by these quotes from Diarmuid Connolly to Hill 16 Army. It is difficult to get an insight into Gavin's methods, but Connolly's recent interview offer us a tantalising glimpse:
The learning that we took from that Donegal game has been the key ingredient to the success since.
You could see it this year. We were baying for a blanket defence, or a hybrid defence, or whatever you want to call it. A Donegal, or a Tyrone defence.
We were baying for it.
We wanted it. We've done so much work on it. We do a lot of other work, but that was the hurt. You could see how we dismantled Tyrone this year. How the guys dismantled the rhythm of their game, we controlled it, we didn't get sucked in played to our strengths. We always had a defensive structure.
It was beautiful to watch.
Gavin has the depth of talent to call on when in trouble, be it Cormac Costello, Con O'Callaghan, or Kevin McManamon, but their razor-sharp edge has been pared by the culture Gavin has bred among the squad. Not unlike Ferguson, he has proven himself faithful to an interesting, fluctuating fusion of form and talent: whereas team selection is largely a meritocracy - it's about what you do when you're not with Dublin: are you doing your recovery, or this or that. And if you're not, then you'll start falling behind" Connolly told Hill 16 Army - Gavin was unafraid to blood Con O'Callaghan in the championship without prior participation in the league.
That there has never been any hint of disunity or unhappiness in the camp, is a testament to the culture he has built.
He is not infallible - this writer believes Gavin erred in this year's public comments of the treatment of Diarmuid Connolly, undermining his player's wish to draw a line under the incident with the linesman - but Jim Gavin has built a dynasty through traditional coaching talent. This can be taken for granted at end-of-year award shows.
As for these awards, we doubt Gavin is remotely bothered by them.
In the end, to what end? He has the silverware that counts.
