IN THE DARC' ABOUT WHAT NOW FOR DUBS

Declan ticks boxes but appointing him looks tricky

- PAT NOLAN

IT was barely 24 hours after Dessie Farrell had stepped aside as Dublin manager that Declan Darcy was being pushed as his successor.

Speaking on The Sunday Game highlights show, Paul Flynn, who won five of his six All-Irelands when Darcy was Jim Gavin's right-hand man, put his name forward.

Flynn firstly suggested that the county board had been "asleep at the wheel" for not developing managers from within their own ranks and acknowledged the credentials of his former teammate Ger Brennan, who was still in situ in Louth at the time, before saying: "I think if I was the county board now I'd go and hunt Declan Darcy and try and get him back into the fold. He was phenomenal, when he was with Jim, for us."

Appointing Brennan seemed almost irresistible as he quit Louth a couple of days later, but that link seems to have cooled since. Last month, Brennan's St Vincent's clubmate said that "I don't think that's going to happen now", while suggesting Darcy as an alternative.