In any other county the appointment of Tommy Lyons as county senior manager would have been a formality. That has not, however, been Dublin's way in recent times. Over the past 11 years, the managerial succession has given the appearance of having been scripted by John le Carre.

On no occasion has the obvious candidate been smoothly appointed - even Pat O'Neill withdrew his name from consideration in 1992 and only a diplomatic offensive changed his mind.

Lyons knows this better than anyone and it informed his initial reluctance to go forward. Six years ago he was enjoying the happy synchronicity of having guided a Dublin club, Kilmacud Crokes, to the All-Ireland six months before O'Neill led the county to a similar achievement before promptly stepping down. Surely the next step was obvious? Not alone was it not, but the whole business became shrouded in intrigue.

To this day, the new Dublin manager maintains that he was offered the job in October 1995 and had even approached potential selectors, including Dave Billings. But the call never came and, under the helpful influence of some traditionalists, the idea of appointing someone born in Mayo (albeit that he had spent his life since the age of nine in Dublin - fatally on the south side) was quickly and inexplicably dropped. Instead, Mickey Whelan was appointed.

There was a certain cyclical irony to the decision last night. Almost four years ago exactly, Lyons was at Parnell Park as manager of Offaly. His team beat Dublin easily and, in the aftermath, Whelan, barracked and abused by the crowd, stepped down as manager of the home team.

At the helm of the Leinster champions, Lyons wasn't interested in the Dublin job but could be forgiven a little schadenfreude at the turn of events.

Taking on the Dublin job at this juncture is a daunting challenge. For all the anguish in the county over how close it came to winning the Leinster title and defeating Kerry last summer, and the medium-term competitiveness of having departed the championship after replays in three of Tom Carr's four years in charge, the team needs an overhaul.

In Lyons's previous incarnations as a manager, though, he has always met the challenge. There was little to separate Kilmacud Crokes from some of the other Dublin champions of the 1990s; in fact they were the least visible in terms of representation on the county team - a fact that irritated Lyons and fed the popular conception of them as a "country" club.

Yet, unlike Thomas Davis, Erins Isle and Na Fianna all of whom fell at the final hurdle, Kilmacud took the county's first All-Ireland club title in 20 years.

The management style was to become familiar. Cheery and breezily confident, Lyons talked a good game but also delivered one. Kilmacud had no obvious stars but played as a high-performing unit. On the club scene, teams more often get found out on the basis of their weakest links rather than the opposition's strongest.

Crokes had no glaring inadequacies and were a quality collective, intelligent enough to play to their strengths on any given day and able to shut out games in tight finishes.

The manager's achievement in having put this together frequently involved hard options, but never compromising players' loyalty. According to Mick Leahy, the veteran centrefielder whose displays were a feature of the All-Ireland win and who had previously been dropped by Lyons: "I'll tell you one thing. If you're around this club bad-mouthing Tommy Lyons, you're making a fool out of yourself. You're making a bad mistake."

There was surprise at his failure to get the Dublin job that autumn. Lyons himself had no doubt about how he would have approached the task. At the Philips Manager of the Year awards that Christmas, he animatedly discussed how the county could defend its All-Ireland. It seemed then that his enthusiasm would go to waste.

A year later it was Offaly that gave him the opportunity to walk the inter-county stage. Within 12 months he was firmly in the spotlight. A year to the day after his appointment was announced, Offaly won their first Leinster title in 15 years.

A hitherto unexceptional side that had spent the previous winter in Division Four of the NFL, the county emerged from the province's preliminary pool to sweep aside Meath in the final. The style of the success impressed as much as its novelty value.

Although that represented a high point, the following May saw Offaly win the county's first NFL title a fortnight before coming unstuck in the championship as Meath claimed revenge for the previous year.

Certain aspects of Lyons' management were highlighted during his spell in Offaly. He chose high-quality selectors, accepting the independent thinking of Eddie Fleming and Paul O'Kelly in return for their insights. Always a disciple of the mind-over-matter approach, he used severe training methods to weed out any faint hearts and a few were lost in the process.

At times in Edenderry that first winter, the temperature hit minus 10. It got so cold that Offaly had to abandon outdoor training and move inside. "Listen, do it now," Lyons told the panel, "and wait until you can feel the sun on your back".

He famously introduced the Nutron diet to the team - and to the public at large. Unwilling to recommend something without trying it himself, he subscribed to the regimen and lost two stone. Players followed suit and, while the physical contribution to success must remain a matter of conjecture, the psychological impact was obvious. A novel method introduced by the manager was seen to work.

Adherence to tactics was emphasised and players' roles within the system were clarified and adopted. "We could train over the break knowing that the league was in our hands and that there'd be no problems with the players' belief in the game-plan. Game-plans don't win games but they can negative the opposition," said Lyons about his first few months in charge of Offaly. But it was the quality of the attacking play that most impressed when the team was at its best.

Another feature of his teams was the strict discipline. "I'm preaching discipline all the time. There's no player here who has a licence to throw a box on the pitch and when they started throwing boxes we ran away. People will say you're a nancy boy, but I do believe you have to walk away from it," he said after one ill-tempered match.

In the two and a half years since he finished in Offaly, Lyons has had a high media profile. A columnist in the Evening Herald and a panellist on The Sunday Game, he has had visible platforms for his robust views. So after much talking the talk, it's time to start walking again and he's probably all the happier for that.