Jim Gavin must have felt pressure from Dubs players to stay on, reckons Mick Bohan

Former Dublin coach Mick Bohan reckons Jim Gavin agreed to stick around for an eighth season as manager partly because “he felt under pressure from his group” to do so.

Bohan, who has guided Dublin to three All-Ireland ladies titles on the trot, stated in September that he thought Gavin could step down and said it would be like Alex Ferguson leaving Manchester United.

Gavin has since commenced preparations for 2020 when his team will challenge for a seventh All-Ireland on his watch after making history as five-in-a-row winners.

Bohan, who was Gavin’s skills coach when Dublin won the Sam Maguire Cup in 2013, said the likelihood is that a number of players including captain Stephen Cluxton would have retired if Gavin had left.

“He’s incredible, isn’t he?” said Bohan. “I’d say he felt under pressure from his group. If you look at it, the key man, Clucko — Clucko wouldn’t have stayed if Jim had gone. That’s one (player). I don’t know how many more would have been in the same boat. His burning desire to continue on is remarkable.

“We would certainly have to see ourselves in Dublin as lucky that he’s doing that and staying because, as I’ve said before, his likes are very hard to find. His appetite to go back to the well again is incredible. I would have said, ‘What has he got to achieve now?’ And what have his group got to achieve? Because they built themselves up for this remarkable achievement. Where do you go then?

“It’s nearly like you’ve reached the ceiling. What do you do next? Unless the same thing exists in their culture (as the Dublin ladies) which is just to play the game at the highest level that it can possibly be played for as long as we can. You’d nearly have to say that’s what they are doing.”

Bohan, the Clare men’s team coach when they reached the 2016 All-Ireland quarter-finals, said the reality is that Gavin and his players have changed the face of football forever.

“We’ll all look back and thank them for driving the game and the standards of the game to a remarkable level,” he said. “Because whoever comes next, whether it’s Kerry or Tyrone, they are going to have to be unbelievable. And they will be. Kerry were so close this year but I think the standard of the game has gone to an incredible place now.

“As coaches now, throughout male and female, you look and think, ‘That’s our goal, that is our goal, to bring the game to that level’.”

Bohan will be without Sinead Goldrick, who recently won her seventh All-Star in eight seasons, and Niamh McEvoy throughout spring due to Aussie Rules deals.

They’re among 18 ladies footballers to have signed WAFL contracts, though she will be back in time for the championship.

Bohan said he’s glad for the Dublin duo though has mixed feelings about the recruitment of Irish players.

“I think our girls, Ireland’s girls, are ripe for the picking for Aussie Rules at the moment,” he said. “They are literally being prepared so it is a really dangerous time. And yet at the same time, you have to take some kind of recognition from it, that isn’t it incredible that our female footballers are being seen at that level, that they are being chosen for a professional game.”

The structure of the 2020 ladies championship remains uncertain due to Dublin having no opposition in Leinster.

Bohan called for the provincial structure to be scrapped and also said the fanfare each year about record crowds at ladies All-Ireland finals bugs him.

“Because it’s one day, the whole success in this is that it should become part of our culture,” said Bohan.

AIG’s 20x20 ambassador Mick Bohan was promoting the new 20x20 Call To Action asking girls and women in Ireland to post videos of their skills online using #CantSeeCantBe to help make women’s sporting skills more visible.