It's ironic that when the shock call came for Paddy Quinn to join the Dublin footballers in the autumn of 2012, it was from a fellow Tyrone native and Jim Gavin's trusted lieutenant Michael Kennedy.

Quinn was 31 and hadn't played underage or senior for Tyrone - a self-proclaimed "late developer" who played with London when living there in his early 20s - it was a bolt from the blue but one he wasn't going to pass up.

Having starred with Na Fianna since transferring to the capital club from Derrylaughan in 2009, he had been on Pat Gilroy's radar but never realistically considered the prospect of wearing Sky Blue.

That all changed when Gavin took the reins and he remembers the nervousness in the car alongside clubmates Jonny Cooper and Tomás Brady as they arrived in Parnell Park for that first meeting.

He thought he'd made the big time - 'I'm on the Dublin panel now' - only to be joined by another 54 bodies in Donnycarney and a stark realisation that the hard yards were just beginning.

Details of Gavin's teachings aren't easily procured but Quinn remembers being blown away by the level of detail in his PowerPoint presentation as he broke down the methodologies which would help achieve some lofty goals.

"He set out clearly that he was taking this job on for three years and his goal was three All-Ireland titles. This was in October and you're hearing him speak about All-Irelands and he had the dates in the diary of when things were and how the whole year was being planned out," Quinn recalls.

"It was a military approach with terms like 'next man up' and that type of thing. There was no bulls**t with him at all. He had an image of all the people in the backroom team and his was the CEO or manager in the middle.

"Everyone was reporting to him, the head physio, the nutritionist and so on. It was like an organisational structure or a business chart. There were nearly like 40 people involved and this was like a business operation.

"One thing he had which was pretty amazing was a depth chart on a screen with hundreds of names on it, like an NFL depth chart. He had all the names blanked out and said, 'This is what we will be reviewing as a management team over the course of the year.

"Players will move up and down as we see fit and we'll be monitoring club football'. His level of detail was unbelievable. It gave off the impression that he'll be covering every single detail and every player will be assessed fairly."

Surrounded by many of the game's finest in Stephen Cluxton, Diarmuid Connolly and Paul Flynn, Quinn was "sold" on the idea of being a Dub and met with Bernard Dunne, as all players did, to see what areas management felt he could make improvements in.

Quinn was "top of the charts by a good bit" in some of the early fitness tests which helped gain brownie points with the new regime but he still wasn't sure "what this man thinks of me".

Being from Tyrone was "never an issue" to Gavin but the "weirdness" of it wasn't lost on Quinn. "I have a northern accent and speaking in the huddle I'm sure the lads were like, 'Who the hell is this boy? I don't even know who he is and he's trying to talk.' You didn't feel like a proper Dub but in fairness, I wasn't," he recalls.

That didn't stop him starting his Dublin career like a house on fire and solid performances in the O'Byrne Cup saw him rewarded with a start in the league opener against Cork alongside a star-studded attacking quintet of Flynn, Connolly, Bernard Brogan, Eoghan O'Gara and Paddy Andrews.

There are some regrets that he didn't grasp the opportunities and he was an unused substitute in Croke Park when the Red Hand got one over on his adopted county by a point - their last competitive win over the Dubs - with his parents "cheering Tyrone off the field while talking to me at the tunnel".

Much is made of how Gavin reacted to their shock All-Ireland semi-final loss to Donegal a year later by changing their style of play and Quinn has first-hand evidence of how hard the Dublin boss takes defeat.

"It was only a league match against Tyrone but the next morning we had a recovery session at the Aquatic Centre and Jim came in and he was like a bull. He was like a fella who hadn't slept and it was the first time I'd seen him really pi***d off. It was like there a cloud hanging over things for a couple of days, he was really angry," Quinn says.

"2014 would have hurt him hard and Dublin have changed their whole mantra. His mantra in those first couple of years was 'man-on-man, defenders win your own ball', that's just changed now and they can play you any way. Maybe it was one-dimensional stuff at the start, it's more playing whatever way it takes to win a match now."

After surviving several cuts, Quinn knew things were "going to be dicey" when he didn't travel to Donegal for their final league encounter and despite picking up a Division 1 League medal, he was soon let go.

He spoke with Gavin on the phone for an hour - "he was very generous with his time" - and despite going back to the club, the door opened again later in the year when his good friend Brady had the misfortune to rupture his cruciate knee ligament.

Wrecked

Quinn's hamstring wasn't right, however, and he "wrecked it" during an in-house game as Ciarán Reddin took his place and went on to claim a Celtic Cross later that year. Does he ever think of what might have been?

"On one hand you'd say it's great to be there but I was let go during the championship and if you're able to hang on you would have won an All-Ireland medal or maybe a couple more, that's just the way it goes."

Being involved in the Dublin set-up gave him more confidence to set up his own business - Paddy Quinn and Co Chartered Accountants - and he scoffs at the notion that things are just handed to the Dubs on a plate.

He feels their all-conquering success is down to management creating a culture where they can flourish and on Sunday they'll relax in a games room at the Gibson Hotel where they'll play table tennis, Jenga, PlayStation or watch some television on bean bags. That's the often-mentioned "process".

Quinn returned to play with Derrylaughan and success came agonisingly close last year when they were pipped by the Cavanagh brothers and Moy (subsequent All-Ireland champions) in last year's Tyrone intermediate final.

While his brief stint with the Dubs and his close association with the capital wion't leave him, loyalties will never be divided for the All-Ireland final and he hopes to have something to gloat about come Monday morning.

Irish Independent