Reaction to Dublin's defeat: Tom Humphries examines the response of Tommy Lyons following Dublin's championship exit and wonders whether he has a future as the county's manager

An odd week on either side of the border which separates Meath from Dublin. The two great houses of Leinster football have been absorbing the disappointment of a curtailed summer in different ways and in different styles.

In Dublin almost everything gets filtered through the prism of the unrelenting media attention and this week much has been made not just of Tommy Lyons's after-match quotes last Saturday but of the counterpoint they made with Seán Boylan's rather more restrained reaction to his side's defeat 24 hours later.

In Meath, where Boylan's genial face has fit just fine for 21 years, there is quiet talk about whether he will stay or he will go but nothing will be done in haste or anger. Boylan's service and his graciousness in defeat ensures that whenever he does depart the stage there will be applause and words of gratitude ringing in his ears.

In Dublin, where a summer of near success in Croke Park can make mega celebrities out of the participants, the response to defeat has been rather more stark. The websites and talk-in shows have raged with furious debate, the print media haven't let up all week (although symbolically the Dublin Daily, the most potent symbol of Tommy Lyons's links with the media, expired a few days after his team did) and the network of phone-lines linking the homes of the Dublin panel and management team have been burning with business.

The nub of most arguments and the subject of most conversations has been Tommy Lyons. Having walked on water last summer, Lyons is in danger of being sent to sleep with the fishes this season. The manner of last week's defeat, the team selections all year, the response to defeat, the general style of the Lyons administration: everything has been questioned. Not least among those who play for Dublin.

None of the players contacted in relation to this article wanted to speak on the record, either in defence of Tommy Lyons or against him. It is conceded, however, even by those within the management team, that at the very least a "clear the air" meeting is required. Others suggest that the manager "needs to be confronted." There is little doubt that there has never been more distance between Tommy Lyons and the players he now manages.

The Dublin manager's comments after the game last Saturday have been a media concern and a talking point among fans but those around the panel suggest that Lyons's general style of management is the more substantive issue and after two years of stop-start progress, Lyons's forceful personality is a major talking point.

Sources suggest that the nature of last Saturday's defeat, and what happened afterwards, are less of a problem with players than the hectoring style of Lyons's management, his motivation methods and his reluctance to cede leadership roles to players used to such things at club level and under previous Dublin administrations.

Oddly, as the media wave has approached a crescendo, Tommy Lyons himself has not been spotted surfing on the crest.

An assured media hand, he declined (having initially accepted) to co-operate in the Q and A session which appears with Dave Billings on this page because he felt that an article in last Saturday's Irish Times was unfair and inaccurate.

Where it all leads is anybody's guess. The Dublin County Board session to review the management team's progress after two years is not due to take place until early September, in the week before the All-Ireland under-21 semi-final. Even a perfunctory examination of the management team's performance seems a little unfair under the circumstances.

This week the players have been talking among themselves and Dave Billings has been talking to the players. The rift between management and players widens it seems when age is taken into account and older players are keen to have some sort of meeting and see some issues thrashed out. That's a high-risk approach.

Tommy Lyons's high-profile style of management was always a risk coming as it did after the hugely democratic era of Tommy Carr had been ended by intervention at county board level. Carr played much of his football for Dublin in that period of the early 90s leading up to the 1995 All-Ireland win. After the four-game Meath epic of 1991, the Dublin side won four Leinster titles back-to-back and played in three All-Irelands and, as the summers grew so long that they almost merged the team, learned to talk together and analyse itself ruthlessly.

Tommy Lyons's style is more autocratic. He is a man of certainties and knows what he likes in footballers and from footballers. And when a Tommy Lyons football team responds and goes well there is nothing better to watch. Offaly's annexation of a Leinster title in his first year in charge contained some of the most energetic, attacking football of the last decade. As did Dublin's identical achievement last summer.

It is hard to know if Lyons could survive a bruising panel meeting if having eliminated the tradition of robust internal debate within the squad he were to suddenly invite contributions from the floor.

It is in crises that rifts appear and in crises that Tommy Lyons looks least assured. The Tommy Lyons era petered out in Offaly and with two-thirds of his tenure elapsed in Dublin, Lyons finds himself in charge of a panel which has not just been told that they overachieved in winning a Leinster in 2003, but that they are not constituted of players good enough to win an All-Ireland. On top of all the other gripes and grumbles there must surely be a credibility problem when it comes to telling the panel that it's all systems go for a tilt at the All-Ireland in 2004.

Of course all these things are distorted in the wake of a defeat, especially a defeat as odd and resounding as that inflicted on Dublin last week. It could be the case that jaw-jaw will prevail over war-war and that Lyons's decision to keep a general low profile in these days will prove wise. The club championships will distract players soon enough. Then there are holidays and the exigencies of real life and the difficulty of finding volunteers when someone asks who wants to stick their head above the parapet anyway.

The National League doesn't begin until February and by then Dublin footballers will be enjoying the fruits of life under Tommy Lyons. They went to Cape Town last year on the back basically of Lyons's business acumen. They are treated by the county board like no Dublin team before them has been. They all share a little bit of the benefit derived from Lyons's insistence on doing things big and doing them better.

So by next February they will either be reinvigorated and Tommy Lyons will be a bit older and a bit wiser or a new face will be picking the first team of his tenure. Last night, catching the vibes around the panel, you would have bet good money on there being blood on the floor soon, but footballers crave a bit of peace.