Eamon Coleman with Derry in '93 was very shrewd. Derry played the conditions very well in that quagmire Ulster final, they won because they kept possession and made Donegal chase. He wasnât afraid to change the team. Three of Derryâs starting six forwards in the semi-final against Dublin were different to the Ulster final. He whipped Danny Quinn off after about 12 minutes against Dublin when Vinnie Murphy was showing signs of running riot against him. That was the end of Danny Quinn with Derry. Coleman was ruthless when he needed to be. Derry used the extra man superbly in the final against Cork at a time when it was quite common for teams to lose with an extra man and Cork didnât score for the last 25 minutes of that game, Derry squeezed them like an anaconda. In all three matches against Donegal, Dublin and Cork, Derry were in potentially losing positions and kept their heads each time to turn it around. They were an exceptionally well coached team, but not an exceptionally talented team.
Off the top of my head itâs as good a coaching performance as I can think of.
Think at half time of the All Ireland final Kernan waited till then to display for the players his All Ireland runners up medal as a player and told them not to come back with the same. Thought it was a good move itâs the one thing stands out about Kernans time to me.
The list of in game positional switches in GAA that turned games on their head is very short I would say. I can think of literally none off the top of my head in Gaelic football. Maybe Philly McMahon against Mayo in 2015. John Leahy moving to right half back in the 1991 Munster hurling final replay is one of the few I can think of in hurling.
Paul Curran being taken off Mickey Linden in the 1994 football final helped to bring Dublin back into that match, but it was hardly rocket science to release your best half back into his best position and away from a task he was hopelessly ill suited to.
Graham Geraghty nearly single handedly saved the 1994 Leinster final for Meath when he got âreleasedâ to rampage forward. But this was still a losing effort and born of panic not genius.
There have been lots of positional switches in football and hurling that worked to turn teams into All-Ireland winners, Sean Boylan was good at it - he turned Graham Geraghty and Brendan Reilly into brilliant scoring forwards when theyâd played in defence for years. Tomas Mannion going to 6 in 2001 when he had been a corner back. Seamus Moynihan going to full back. Sean Cavanagh to full forward and Enda McGinley to midfield for Tyrone in 2008. But these were all rehearsed switches.
Mick OâDwyer turned Sean Walsh - who was a Rolls Royce of a footballer - from a scoring forward into a full back. Apparently he tried the same with Jack OâShea and it was a disaster.
Tyrone 2005 and 2008 were the definition of a team who could roll with punches and inevitably find a way to bring games around to their terms. A phenomenally smart group of players with total faith in themselves. Joe McMahon was the definition of this. He could play anywhere. He played up front against Dublin and then went back as sweeper against Kerry.
The evolution in tactics in both football and hurling over the first 110 years of the association was glacier like. Kick outs being a prime example. Hoof it as long as possible in the general direction of your biggest player was the tried and trusted tactic. It took Donal og in hurling and Cluxton in football to reach the mind blowing concept of trying to deliver it to one of your own players.
Fortunate to manage Cork during a period when Kerry were in *decline? His second tenure with Cork left a bit to be desired when they usually exited with a tame performance against Kerry in Croke Park. Conor Counihan improved them upon his arrival.
*Partly because of Mickoâs loyalty to the elder statesmen.
Did Gavin actually change the game? He killed off the last vestiges of the Leinster football championship and quite literally changed the game as head of the FRC. But how did that Dublin team actually change the game? An irrevocable descent towards professionalism? Cluxton was pinging quick kick-outs to Shane Ryan long before Jimâs arrival.
I would say Billy Morgan improved Cork quite a lot during his second spell in charge. In 2003 which was Larry Tompkinsâ last year they were thrashed by Limerick in Pairc Ui Chaoimh and then lost to Roscommon in the first round of the qualifiers.
2004 which was Morganâs first year back didnât see any improvement but from 2005 on the improvement was steady. They reached three All-Ireland semi-finals in a row and then an All-Ireland final in 2007.
Counihan built on the work Morgan started. Morgan also won the All-Ireland club as a manager and sure isnât he Mr. Sigerson? (I think?)
Yes. First of all he had Dublin playing arguably the most exhilarating football any team has ever played, in 2013 and 2014. It was Gaelic football that sounded like a 1989 McLaren engine or the opening chords of Rock N Roll Star by Oasis.
Then when Jimmy tore that to shreds, which was quite inevitable looking back on it, Gentleman Jim added Cian OâSullivan as a sweeper so that it would never happen again, and it never happened again.
Dublin stretched the field as wide as possible, probed and probed like Guardiolaâs Barcelona and relentlessly took the right option like peak 2010s New Zealand and tore blankets asunder. This led to the TRADEMARK back post palmed goal becoming the teamâs signature move like the back post tap in had become Guardiolaâs Abu Dhabiâs signature move. Peak Dublin would have beaten Armagh 2024 by 23 points.
But no other team could do this and when Dublin departed the scene, Gaelic football reverted to a hellish mixture of Jimmyball 2011 and Gentleman Jimâs Possessionball 2018.
The lasting negative impact Gavinâs Dublin bequeathed to Gaelic football was the idea of possession at all costs.
Up to 2011 all GAA tactics were coloured by impatience and the tendency towards psychological shame. At a match, the crowd demanded you kick the ball, or at least move it forward. Regardless of tactics, if there was a bottleneck, players would eventually get embarrassed and panic and revert to âlet it inâ.
Dublin lost the 2007 All-Ireland semi-final to Kerry because when theyâd got within one point of Kerry with about three minutes left and Kerry were right on the ropes, Stephen Cluxton got the ball and saw a bottleneck in front of him, dilly dallied, felt the crowd shouting at him, and was psycholoigically shamed into headlessly booting the ball straight to Kieran Donaghy 50 yards out the pitch. Kerry were not not psychologically shamed once they got the ball and relentlessly moved the ball around to get the best shooter on the ball in the best position and that was Declan OâSullivan and he scored and that was it (I may have got the particular details of this wrong but you get the jist of it).
There was a particular moment in the 2011 semi-final between Dublin and Donegal where you realised Donegal were different. They took a short free somwhere around half way and went sideways, and then went backwards. Dublin did not come forward to challenge. The Dublin crowd groaned and booed, expecting to shame Donegal into âletting it inâ or making the ball a contest. But Donegal did not care. They were sticking to their Hunegal tactics and no Dublin crowd was going to intimidate them. They were steadfast like Orangemen on the 12th. They almost gloried in the booing their tactics provoked. WE DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK. This was a line in the sand moment where Gaelic football tactics changed forever. WHATEVA, I DO WHAT I WANT, as an obese cartoon child once said.
Dublin then ran with that in the last couple of minutes of the 2017 final against Mayo and Paul Kimmage went mental. By the 2018 league Dublin were also saying WE DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK as they passed the ball all around the attacking 45 for four minutes straight. Then everybody else started doing this and Jim Gavin was entrusted with putting an end to the very thing he had created.
He actually had a personality, for starters. Plus youâd always enjoy watching his teams. Imagine Jim going to Sligo or Leitrim - or both - and winning provincial titles with them. Or winning Carlow a Tailteann Cup.
Dublin played brilliant football in the first half of Gavinâs tenure. The 2013 and 2015 semi finals were epic games with brilliant football from both teams. Some of the Dublin v Mayo games in 2016 and 2017 were brilliant spectacles too. Robot ball came as an antidote to the atrocious spectacle that was Jim McGuinnesâs blanket defence.
2011 semi - Donegalâs blanket defence was ridiculous.
But in 2012 Donegal played a much more expansive game to win the All Ireland.
The meeting in 2014 was incredibly naive from Gavin. That never happened again!
I think @peddlerscross correctly called the 2017 All Ireland as the pinnacle of Gaelic football. âBlanket defencesâ yes but intensity and quality of both Dublin and Mayo was off the charts,